


Unexpected

by hhertzof



Series: Unexpected [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Smith Audios
Genre: Babyfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 59,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after <a href="http://hhertzof.livejournal.com/1670.html">Inconceivable</a></p><p>Betaed by paranoidangel</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old Friends

It had been a day for surprises. Her mind was still reeling with the knowledge that she was carrying the Doctor's baby when the phone rang. Jo, saying she had run into Tegan in the airport and wondering if Sarah might like to join them and Liz for a drink later. She'd agreed, feeling even more like the world was conspiring against her.

By the time she got to the pub, the other three women were already seated at one of the tables, with drinks in front of them. She ordered a lemonade, and hoped the others wouldn't comment on it. She was quickly disillusioned.

"Not drinking, Sarah?" Liz asked. Her friend had said often enough that she found Jo much more bearable if she was at least slightly drunk. Sarah always seemed to drink twice as much as any of the others, though she never seemed the worse for wear. Jo, on the other hand got very giggly after a beer or two.

Sarah blushed. "Um, ah, one night stand with an old friend. Thought I was past the age when pregnancy was an issue. Apparently not. I just found out and it hasn't really sunk in yet."

She hoped they wouldn't ask who the old friend was. She wasn't sure how they'd react. Liz, she thought would take it in stride, but the other two.... She'd suspected he was sleeping with Rose, but she'd never asked about the others, before and after her.

Jo and Tegan stared at her, slightly horrified, saying things like "at your age" and "I thought you were more sensible".

Liz looked merely thoughtful. She said, reassuringly, "It's not that bad. Think of it this way, you have a good income and lots of life experience. It's not as though you're seventeen and struggling to finish school and take care of a baby."

"I feel like a walking advertisement regarding accidental pregnancy. Maybe I should take up visiting schools. Don't do what I did kids, or you might end up just like me. You'd think I would have known better," Sarah vented.

"It's just weird." Jo said, "Here we are, all three of us grandmothers and you're just starting a family. But think of it this way, you have all of our experience to draw on and maybe it's time for you to stop gallivanting around and settle down."

Sarah winced; she hadn't thought of that. "I'm not sure that's possible. Most of my recent adventures have involved old enemies out to get me. I don't think they'll stop because I'm having a baby." She'd have to talk to Josh. She wasn't certain the Crimson Chapter was completely gone and heaven only knew what the White Chapter would make of this.

Tegan said sharply, "You have to. That's no life for a baby. You're responsible for someone besides yourself now. Stop being so selfish."

Sarah put on a brave grin, the other woman had no idea what her life was really like. "I'll try. However inconvenient the timing, I want this baby. It's just difficult. I never planned on having children and my life was built around that. It's going to be a major change."

"Well, why don't you let me get you started." Liz suddenly smiled. "I bought this for my daughter this morning, then she called to let me know it was a girl. She's the sort," she said confidentially, "who will persist in dressing her daughter in pink frills. I don't know where she gets it from. Not me. Anyway, consider this your first baby gift. It seems especially appropriate after your recent trip."

She passed Sarah a dark blue romper with space shuttles, astronauts and stars sprinkled all over it, causing the other two women to giggle. Sarah stared at it, suddenly understanding the other woman's thoughtful expression earlier. She hadn't expected it to turn up so soon. Hadn't been certain it would show up at all.

\---

"Dr. Shaw? Lavinia Smith. I hope you don't mind that I brought my niece along. Sarah Jane. No school today. You understand."

"Oh no, no problem at all. I'm glad you could make it. We've got a rather knotty problem with this virus and I hope you'll be able to help us sort it out. And it's Liz, please. Now the problem is...."

Sarah tuned out the conversation. Not that she didn't like science, but she spent too much time listening to Aunt Lavinia natter on about her work. She looked all around, absorbing every detail of the lab. The whole thing had been so exciting. A secret military base and Aunt Lavinia being called in to consult. She'd known her aunt was well known in certain circles, but she hadn't imagined anything like this.

"Oh, a baby. Is she yours or do you....?" She didn't want to think that the baby was here for experiments.

"Oh, no." Liz looked up from her work. "UNIT's science advisor dropped her off not all that long ago. Said he needed a safe place to stash her while he dealt with something."

"What a chauvinist," Lavinia said disapprovingly. "As though you didn't have your own work to do."

"More eccentric, I'd say." Liz smiled. "Trust me. I'm sure he would just as happily have dumped her in the Brigadier's lap without a second thought. Sometimes it's just easier not to argue with him."

Sarah said, "Oh what a cute romper. I guess the mother doesn't buy into the stereotypes if she's dressing her daughter in a space themed outfit. What's her name?"

"You'll have to forgive Sarah," Lavinia said to Liz, "She never stops asking questions."

"I don't mind. Her name is Fred, of all things. Her mother's named Sarah, like you. He said that she'd probably sleep til he got back and that he had to bring her home soon. Eccentric," she repeated, though she was smiling when she said it.

Aunt Lavinia added, "Why don't you sit in that chair and cuddle her while we sort this out?"

Sarah suspected her aunt had come up with that idea to keep her in sight and out of trouble. She picked up the baby gingerly. Dolls and babies had never interested her, but the baby was more interesting than listening to Dr. Shaw and Aunt Lavinia talk about pneumowhatsits. Dr. Shaw was much younger than she'd expected and she started rethinking her desire to become a reporter.

She'd been dithering between journalism and science since she started high school and she still wasn't sure. Perhaps she'd earn a degree in science and then go off and work for a science magazine. That would be fun. Nothing to do with viruses though. Physics or engineering. She liked figuring out how things worked.

The baby stirred in her arms and she regarded it uncomfortably. A sleeping baby was one thing, but she was sure that if the baby woke up and started wriggling or crying, she'd drop it or do something else stupid. She didn't have any experience with babies.

Sarah took a deep breath and started talking to it softly. "So your name is Fred. Fredericka, maybe, like the Georgette Heyer novel. It goes with your outfit. Maybe you'll be an astronaut when you grow up. That would be cool. Or you could build spaceships or study the stars. Ask your mum about Maria Mitchell. She was an astronomer and very famous." She went on babbling in a soft voice about women scientists and aliens.

Sarah supposed this wasn't what one normally said to a baby but she'd always been scornful of baby talk. So she just talked normally about all the things that interested her and all the cool things the baby could see and do when it was older. "And never stop asking questions. You'll never learn anything, otherwise."

She realized her arm was falling asleep. She looked up at the clock on the wall. They'd been here almost an hour. She hesitantly shifted the baby to get a better grip easing it to the crook of her other arm, like she'd seen other women do. She placed her free hand on the baby' s chest to steady it and then paused. She could have sworn she'd felt two hearts beating. That was weird. A birth defect, or a heart murmur, maybe.

She wasn't a doctor, she couldn't be sure, and Aunt Lavinia had said that UNIT's job was dealing with unusual phenomena. Maybe there really were aliens. "If you're an alien, you're a very cute one," she said to the baby quietly. "Not planning to take over the Earth any time soon, I hope."

Now that she looked closer, the spaceships on the baby's outfit looked odd. More like planes than rockets. Another thing to wonder about.

Her train of thought was interrupted by her aunt's voice. "Sarah, give the baby back to Liz. I think we've isolated the problem. I've got some books back at my lab that might help. I'll stop by tomorrow, while Sarah's at school."

Sarah obediently handed the baby back to Dr. Shaw, hoping she hadn't been lying when she said they weren't going to experiment on her. "Thank you, Dr. Shaw," she said quickly before her aunt nagged her about it.

"It was nice to meet you, Sarah, perhaps we'll meet again someday." Dr. Shaw smiled at her. "Thanks, Lavinia. Not that I'd say anything against the Doctor. He is a brilliant scientist, after all. But it was fun solving a problem without him for once."

Sarah frowned as she got into her aunt's car. Today hadn't gone according to plan at all. She'd thought she have a chance to snoop around and ask questions, instead she'd ended up babysitting and that had raised more questions than it answered. Someday she decided, she'd find out more about UNIT.

\---

As Sarah had gone through uni, she'd convinced herself that her original thought, that the baby had a heart condition, had been right but the belief that there was something odd about UNIT had persisted. When the opportunity had presented itself, she had jumped at the chance to masquerade as her aunt and investigate further.

She stared down at the romper in her hands. Cause and effect. She just hoped that he didn't mess up the navigation when he tried to return Fred to her. Maybe she'd grow up to be like Fred on Angel. Sarah wouldn't be surprised.

She realised that the other three were staring at her. "Sorry, I zoned out there for a moment. That space trip was as harrowing as anything the Doctor ever put me through. I'm still shocked that Josh and I made it back to Earth. The romper's marvellous, Liz." She smiled at the other woman, wondering suddenly if Liz had felt those two hearts beating and made the obvious connection. She decided it was time to change the subject. "Jo, when you called you said something about pictures of Tegan's new grandchild. I might as well get used to looking at babies."

The conversation ranged over babies and old times and adventures and absent friends. Before Sarah knew it, the others were making noises about getting home to their husbands and families, another thing she would have to get used to.

At least she knew that at some point during the next year, she'd find a way to get in touch with the Doctor and she knew that the baby would be born healthy. She'd worried about that, between her age and lifestyle and the baby's father not being human. She'd manage the rest somehow. She had to.

As they left the pub, Liz put a hand on her arm, holding her back as the other two went on ahead. "Why don't you stop by the lab and have lunch tomorrow? We can talk some more."

Sarah smiled at her, "That would be lovely. I haven't been back to UNIT since the Doctor left. Can you believe it? Used to be they couldn't keep me away." She was certain Liz knew now. Not that that was a bad thing. She didn't think it was safe to visit a regular doctor, especially knowing what she already did about the baby's anatomy, so if Liz volunteered, Sarah planned on taking her up on the offer.


	2. Girl Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after Inconceivable

Sarah looked around as she made her way down the corridors of the current UNIT operation. It had changed so much from the shoestring operation she remembered.

She rubbed her eyes. She hadn't slept much. There were too many thoughts running round her brain and too many decisions that would have to be made.

Last night, she'd been numb. She'd said some things that she now regretted. Told the others she was pregnant, before she'd had a chance to absorb it herself. They meant well, but she suspected only Liz's support would amount to anything worthwhile. Jo and Tegan would try, but they'd been attempting to fix her up for years and they didn't quite get that there were other ways to live.

Liz looked up, slightly startled, as Sarah entered the lab. "Thought I'd have to come down and escort you. How did you get all the way up here?"

"My old security clearance was still on file. I never thought much about it at the time, but the guards seemed impressed. They double checked my identity, made me an ID card and told me I could go. Rather fun for a reporter. We're always being chucked out of places. Wish I'd known sooner." Sarah's tone was light, but a little bit forced.

"I'm almost done, then we can be off to lunch." Liz spoke briskly. "Like the new lab? Much better than the one I had back in the seventies."

Sarah glanced at the state of the art equipment. "I take it you're well funded these days. I was rather surprised you came back here, but then I was never quite sure why you left in the first place, self-absorbed teenager that I was in those days."

"Once the Brigadier and the Doctor had left, there was no reason not to."

Sarah stared at her. "Okay, the Doctor I get. From what I understand, he basically came in and took over what was supposed to be your job, but the Brigadier?"

Liz looked embarrassed. "We were involved. It didn't end well. I, um, wouldn't tell Jo this."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't dream of it. I made the mistake of hinting once that I fancied the Doctor. She made it clear that she thought it was a sign of sexual deviancy." Sarah stopped suddenly at the expression on Liz's face.

"Sexual deviancy is a bit strong but seriously, Sarah, of all the men to have a crush on, why on earth would you choose him? Not exactly attractive and I never got the impression that he was interested in humans that way. Lesser lifeforms and all that."

Sarah winced. She'd assumed last night that Liz had known. This was going to be incredibly awkward, but she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't risk a regular obstetrician, and Harry wasn't available. She hoped Liz would be an ally, once she knew.

Liz continued, not noticing Sarah's reaction, "So, moving on to men you did sleep with, do you want to talk about the baby? Last night you looked rather blind-sided and it wasn't just that romper. Talking through it might help. I won't judge, I promise. Although the romper thing was weird in itself. Finding it in the shop and then finding out you were pregnant. It would be so strange if it was your daughter."

Sarah sat back and closed her eyes, trying to marshal her thoughts. "Yeah. Well, I'd just found out. As in a hour or two before. It hadn't sunk in yet. Still hasn't. I just blurted it out, when it probably would have been better to wait and think things through first. You know my lifestyle. Late nights, adventure, danger, that sort of thing. I was looking forward to growing old as disgracefully as possible."

"And being pregnant out of wedlock isn't disgraceful enough for you?"

Sarah smiled thinly. "I'm fifty-two and used to being the only person I need to consider when making decisions. I've only ever managed an affair that lasted longer than a year once. I've got a dangerous life, and just saying I need to change it doesn't make it so."

Liz started putting away her equipment, making no move to interrupt Sarah's rant.

"I'd make a lousy mother. I'm not good at following rules, how could I expect my child to? I'll be parenting a teenager in my late sixties. God, if it were anyone else's child I'd have an abortion and be done with it."

Liz couldn't let that pass. "Anybody else's child? Do you want to elaborate on that? I didn't even know you were seeing someone. Though you did say an old friend. Don't tell me Harry finally showed up from wherever he's been hiding."

Sarah decided to address the last part first. "No, I haven't even heard from Harry in years and he was never interested in me anyway. I guess you didn't know he's gay."

"No idea. Go on. Tell me about this mysterious guy. Anyone I've met?" Liz sat down on a stool beside Sarah.

Sarah took a deep breath and then said in a rush, "Yes, it's the Doctor. We, um, Lord, like you and the Brigadier, we were involved back in the day, but it was long over and then we ran into each other again and I guess old habits die hard. It was supposed to be closure." She patted her stomach. "Doesn't look like it ended up that way."

"Sarah, this is becoming ridiculous. It was one thing to start telling stories about this cult that just happened to think you were their herald, now you're claiming that your relationship with the Doctor wasn't just a case of 'he's reasonably attractive but it will never happen' but a torrid romance."

"I wouldn't call it that." Sarah hugged herself. This was not going well. "More like, what's the phrase they use now, 'friends with benefits'. We were always friends first. The rest was just icing. I thought it was enough at the time, but then he left and I...no one ever measured up." She shrugged.

Liz shook her head. "Sarah," she said gently, "you need to stop this. Making up stories isn't going to make your life more interesting. I can understand why it started, here we are with wonderful families, and you're feeling old, missing the adventures you used to have and thinking you need to come up with a reason to justify being alone. I don't know if you actually believe the tales you're spinning, but they aren't real. No deranged cultists, no fantasy romance. Probably no baby – just a stomach bug and menopause. Try living in the real world for once, it might surprise you."

Sarah stood suddenly. There was no point in prolonging this conversation. She had no other options available but it was clear that Liz wasn't going to listen. "You're right, of course, about everything. I won't take up any more of your time, then and I don't think I'll stay for lunch. Upset stomach. Oh, and here." She pulled the romper out of her handbag. "Save this for your next grandchild, I guess I won't be needing it. I'll see myself out."

It was ironic, she thought as she walked back to the entrance. She'd kept her secrets, her silence for so long about so many things, measuring out what little was safe to speak of like it was precious and even Liz hadn't believed the little she'd said aloud. Liz, like the others, had settled back into normal life easily. Adventures were for the young. She'd never believed that, but it seemed the rest of the world did.

Maybe she should have gone with the Doctor, when Rose had offered. She shook her head. It would have been awkward, even without the baby on the way. Rose hadn't understood what was really going on, that the moment Sarah started travelling with them she would cease to be 'the ex'. Sarah was too old for the much younger Rose to see as a threat to her own relationship with the Doctor.

It would have been fun, though, being around people who didn't assume she was making up stories every time she spoke. She walked out the door to discover it had started raining, and murmured, "It figures." She'd find some way to get through this pregnancy, even if she had to do it alone.


	3. Ladies Who Lunch

She was very surprised when Liz called her two weeks later.

"Tegan's heading back home tomorrow and we thought we'd get together for lunch before she went."

"I think I'll have to cry off. My stomach's still a bit upset." Sarah knew Liz would hear that as 'I feel like an idiot and don't want to talk to anybody'.

Liz's tone was overly patient. "You have to see them sometime. You can say it was a false alarm. Sarah, please, I'm starting to worry about you."

"Oh, all right. I might be a little late, I've got a meeting at 11:30." Liz was right. No matter how pathetic the three of them might think her, she had to go back with her head held high.

The meeting was with Josh. Sarah didn't plan on telling him about the baby, yet. Her head was too messed up at the moment to deal with the implications of the Orbis Pastrami (as she called it privately).  
She did, however, let it slip that she was meeting some old friends for lunch.

"I'm coming along. I don't believe you have other friends," Josh teased.

"Girls only. And don't you have that meeting with the bankers?"

Josh frowned. "I don't know how dad did it. It's boring," he whined, making Sarah laugh.

"The hazards of being Sir Donald Wakefield's only son. Look, I'll play nice. Why don't you walk over to the café with me? It's just around the corner. I'll introduce you and then you can toddle off to your meeting." And I get to shove you in Liz's face. Fantasy world, indeed.

"An offer I can't refuse. Lead on, MacDuff."

"You're mixing your quotations, Josh."

He smirked at her as they walked into the restaurant.

"Over here, Sarah." Tegan was waving as though she didn't expect to be heard over the din.

Sarah threaded her way through the crowded café to their table with Josh right behind her, wondering just what she was trying to prove by bringing him along. Maybe she was just tired of keeping secrets. "Everyone, this is my assistant Josh Townsend. Josh, I'd like you to meet Dr. Liz Shaw, Jo Jones, and Tegan Jovanka, who we ran into on the flight back from Australia last year."

Josh smiled. "Tegan, I remember. The two of you were having the most cryptic conversation I ever heard. 'The Celery Stalks at Midnight' and all that." He was mystified when Tegan and Sarah looked at each other and burst into hysterical laughter. "It wasn't that funny."

Sarah finally caught her breath and replied, "Yes, it was. You have no idea," and started giggling again. The absurdity was a relief after the stress of the last few days.

"So why is it I never knew you were an international spy, SJ?" Josh could never resist teasing her.

"We can't all be deranged cultists, Josh. And don't call me SJ." The words came out of Sarah's mouth before she could stop them, but to her relief, Josh just laughed.

Some of the relief must have shown on her face, because Josh smiled and said, "If you can joke about that, things must be all right between us."

She hadn't realized he was still worried about that. She had thought that just falling back into their usual patterns had been reassurance enough. She said impulsively, "Look, I'm sorry I came down on you so hard about that. It was a bit of a shock, you have to understand. But I shouldn't have...there are plenty of things I never told you about my life, so I shouldn't have come down so hard on you for keeping secrets." Pot and kettle. She saw the understanding looks on the other women's faces. They had all had to deal with that at one time or another.

"That means a lot to me, SJ. Now, off to the bankers. Are you sure I can't stay and have lunch with you?"

"Nope. Responsibilities and all that." Not that she'd ever been terribly responsible. She was going to be a terrible role model for the baby.

"No boys allowed," Jo clarified.

Tegan added, "If you don't leave how are we supposed to gossip about you?" causing Liz to roll her eyes at Sarah.

He gave them all an exaggerated frown and left. Sarah sat down at the table.

"Cute, and young. Are you stealing the cradle now, Sarah?" Tegan asked, once Josh was out of earshot. "He's not the baby's father, is he?"

"I thought Sarah said the baby's father was an old friend," Jo objected. "You've only known Josh a few years, right? I can't believe you had Sir Donald Wakefield's heir working for you as an assistant. And what's with this deranged cultist business? You're not saying he was sent to kill you, are you?"

"No, he's a member of the other chapter, sent to protect me from the Crimson chapter...." Sarah broke off as the waitress came over to take their orders.

While the other two were ordering, Liz took the opportunity to squeeze Sarah's hand and say quietly, "I've been stewing over our conversation all week. I'm not saying I believe you, but I'm willing to do some tests. Especially if you're still feeling queasy. I don't want you feeling like you have nowhere to turn. I hope it's enough."

Sarah smiled reassuringly at her. "It is. I know it's hard to believe what I told you. Quite honestly, I never thought I'd be in a situation where I'd have to tell anybody. Hell, I'd be much happier if this were a false alarm." She realized the waitress was waiting patiently for her to order. "I'll have tea with lemon and the chicken salad. House dressing."

"Well, at least that's healthier than your usual cheeseburger with everything," Jo said. "So, back to Josh and the baby. You never answered our other questions."

"No, he's not the baby's father. And neither is Harry. Beyond that I'm not saying. I'm not absolutely certain there is a baby yet. I'm hoping it was a false positive."

"You don't think that's going to stop us from speculating, do you?" Tegan grinned. "You usually don't drop tidbits about your love life like that. We'll pounce on every scrap we can get."

"You have to remember," Jo added, "we're all married and settled. You're the one with the interesting, exotic life. It's all about living vicariously through you."

"Oh, there are times I'd trade my life for yours without a second thought," Sarah said lightly, "Especially, when I'm running for my life yet again." It wasn't quite a lie. There were rare times when she wondered what it would be like to have someone to come home to, but she'd only ever met one man who might be worth the sacrifice and he was less apt to settle down than she was.

"Right," Tegan said sarcastically. "Back to the baby's father, or the man you slept with recently without paying proper attention to the recommended methods of protection, if you prefer. There must be something you're willing to tell us. Older? Younger? What's he look like? Was it a case of picking up where you left off or unresolved sexual tension?"

Jo took up the thread. "Is he married? Is that why you won't tell us anything? Or someone who'll be killed if they knew he'd been with you? If you won't tell us anything, we'll have to start making things up, Sarah."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Apparently, Liz was the only one who doubted the truth of her stories. Sarah considered and then said, "All right, I give. I ran into him and it was like no time had passed, even though it's been more than twenty years since I saw him. Um, not married, but he had a girl with him, though I'm not quite sure if they were friends or lovers. Looks fabulous, even after all these years."

"So do you," Jo interjected.

Sarah ignored her and continued, "He showed up at my hotel room ostensibly to talk. Ostensibly being the operative word. You can guess the rest. No, I'm not going to go into detail."

"Spoilsport," Tegan said.

Liz rolled her eyes at Sarah again.

Sarah said, "And people say I stick my nose where it doesn't belong. Anyway, the next day we decided we had to move on with our lives, separately. I don't know where he is, and have no way to contact him. So there you go. One night stand with the ex...if you ask me it was more sordid than exciting."

"Sarah, as much as I adore my husband, I've been married to him for thirty years," Jo said. "Showing up at my hotel room unexpectedly in the middle of the night with seduction on his mind is just not happening here."

"I'm with Jo," Tegan said. "I know we've spent too many years trying to fix you up with someone, but in the end it's nice to know someone close to our age who's still out there trying to make the world a better place and having adventures and wild flings. We know domesticity isn't your thing."

"It wasn't mine either, but I coped in the end. It'll be okay, Sarah," Liz said gently. "Whatever happens. If it isn't a false alarm, we'll be there for you, the way you've always been there for us."

The food arrived and conversation ceased for a moment.

Sarah stared thoughtfully at Liz, realizing she had overreacted to the other woman's scepticism. Too many years of not trusting anyone. Liz hadn't stopped caring about her, even if she didn't believe that the baby was the Doctor's. Sarah could have appealed to her on a scientific basis. Alien DNA would probably show up in tests. She'd just been too upset to think of it and too quick to assume the worst.

Jo interrupted her train of thought, asking about the trip to Australia that Josh had mentioned and Sarah spoke briefly about Will Sullivan and the visit to Antarctica that went so horribly wrong, before finding a way to turn the conversation back to pregnancy and babies, asking all sorts of practical questions that had never occurred to her before. She didn't know how useful the information would be, but she had discovered over the years that asking questions prevented having to answer them.

By the time lunch was over, Sarah was in a much better frame of mind, than she'd been since K-9 had told her 'You are pregnant, mistress'. The thought of being responsible for a baby still scared her, but knowing her friends were on her side helped. She arranged to come by the lab the next day to see Liz, thinking that maybe she could do this after all.


	4. Back to the Beginning

Sarah was surprised to see the Brigadier when she entered Liz's lab. From what Liz had said, Sarah had assumed that they hadn't spoken to each other in years.

"Hello, Miss Smith." He shook her hand. "It's been a while. I was called in to consult on this Siluran business and thought I'd stop and say hello to Dr. Shaw."

"It's good to see you again after all these years, Brigadier." Sarah paused awkwardly. "I'm afraid I've lost track of your current title."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Smith. I was never comfortable with my promotions. I found I preferred fieldwork. Now, if you two will excuse me, I'm expected in a meeting."

"I'm glad you stopped by. It has been way too long," Liz said. "Please, don't be a stranger."

After he left Sarah looked at Liz inquisitively, but didn't say anything.

Liz took pity on her. "He stopped by unexpectedly. I haven't seen him in years I don't know - maybe our talk made me realize how much time had passed and that it might be time to forgive and forget."

Sarah sat down in a chair by Liz's rather messy desk. "He never knew what to make of me. He seemed willing to accept that women have careers; he always spoke of you highly, but I confounded him for some reason."

"He knew. About your relationship with the Doctor. Between our own past and my mentioning that I was meeting you for lunch, it came up somehow." Liz reached over and patted Sarah's shoulder. "So I apologise. I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

"Liz, I don't blame you. Hell, I don't even believe some of the stuff that's happened to me over the years. It was just...I'm fifty-two and I thought I was past this. Pregnancy, motherhood and all of the complications involved because the baby is half-alien. I was feeling overwhelmed and I walked out because I just couldn't cope. If I'd been in any shape to argue the point rationally. I might have been able to convince you. I didn't think of mentioning that the Brigadier knew, or suggesting that you do some tests. I'm still not sure why you decided to give me the benefit of the doubt."

Liz sat down at her desk, facing Sarah, and started looking for a file. "I was worried about you. You've isolated yourself to some extent; your social life consists of the rare times Jo and I badger you to come out and play and Josh and Nat, was it?" At Sarah's nod, Liz continued, "You compartmentalize your life more than the rest of us have ever done."

"So, you're saying I need to get out more." Sarah smiled to show she wasn't offended.

Liz replied, "No, I'm saying you need to let people in more. We've been there, we might understand, Sarah...at least some of it. And I get the rest. You've gone to great pains to pretend your relationship with him was just like ours - friend, colleague, mentor - but it wasn't. You have to trust us to be there for you. It's why we get together in the first place and why you keep coming round, even though I know Jo gets on your nerves. Heaven knows how she'll react when she finds out..."

"...But I need to trust her." Sarah completed for her. "You're right, Liz. I do tend to err on the side of paranoia and the events of the last few years have made that worse. Nothing like an alien's long-term revenge plot to screw up your head. However, given the way you reacted, I'd rather not tell them until I have proof. And trying to explain this to Nat and Josh, especially Josh, is going to be a nightmare. I have to tell them something, though."

"Why 'especially Josh'? In fact, why tell them at all? It's not as though the child will have two heads or something." She paused in her searches and looked up at Sarah. "I feel weird about saying this but we're different. We understand about the Doctor."

"Because Josh of Josh's beliefs. I sprung the Mandragora's trap during that ill-fated space trip I took last year, but the Orbus Postremo still exists and the Crimson chapter is probably still trying to kill me. With Sir Donald's death, Josh became keeper of the White Chapter and I need him on my side. And he's a friend, who I've lied to way too often. Nat too. It's going to be interesting, though. His beliefs about aliens are firmly black and white."

"Fair enough. Here it is." Liz waved a file, triumphantly. "The Doctor's medical records from his days with UNIT."

Sarah stared, "I didn't know those still existed."

"Paper only. And I think they'll be disappearing soon. I don't like the current climate much. There are rumours that he's not in great favour with the current government."

"He hinted at something like that, when I saw him. The incident at Christmas. He wasn't pleased with the Prime Minister's actions." Sarah thought about Skaro and consequences, but remained silent; she still wasn't sure which path she would choose now. She shook her head to clear it, then noticed Liz staring at her, "Sorry, my mind wandered. She gave the order to destroy the Sycorax ship after they had agreed to leave."

"Not something that would sit well with him. Now, back to the baby. Let's start with the basics remembering that I don't know anything about Time Lord genetics except what's in here. Adult, male and horribly incomplete. No genetic mapping in the seventies. I don't know how much of it will be useful. Are you sure it's his, Sarah?" Liz asked flipping through the file. "I'd have thought crossfertilization would have to be difficult, if not impossible."

"Couldn't be anyone else's given the timing." She paused. "Five weeks, and there's been no one else in the past six months. It has to be his." Sarah hesitated, then broached her other worry to Liz. "The environments I spent time in...I've been exposed to various types of radiation over the years and heaven only knows what else. Nothing that's ever shown up on tests, but if you start digging I don't know what you'll find." She had some suspicions, but she wanted to see Liz's test results first.

"We'll deal with things as we come to them. Oh, I nearly forgot." Liz reached into the bottom drawer of her desk. "Here's the romper back. I did a double take when I saw that romper in the store. I couldn't figure out how it had ended up on the baby the Doctor had left with me that day and then you turned up, saying you were expecting. I'd never connected you with that Sarah before."

"I did." Sarah shifted restlessly. "When it became clear where our relationship was heading, I wondered if she were mine. It's ironic in a way. I was so adamant about using birth control back then, whether or not I needed it with him. I wasn't ready to be a mother and I wasn't taking chances." She hesitated. "All I know about that day is what I saw and what I deduced later on."

Liz said, "I should have thought of that. This could take a while. Are you hungry, or do you want to finish this conversation first? I don't think it's something we want to be discussing in public. Why don't I take a blood sample and start some basic tests and we can compare notes?"

"Not sure I could keep anything down at this point. Unless you're starving, I'd rather stay and talk." Sarah drank from a bottle of water she'd been carrying.

"I'm fine for the moment," Liz said as she started gathering what she needed. "I don't know much myself except what I saw. The Doctor came in with another man who he introduced as 'a future me' which was bewildering enough. I knew the concept of regeneration; the Brigadier was horribly thrown when the Doctor showed up with a new face, but the reality was hard to grasp. He regenerated, didn't he, when you were with him?"

"Yes. Both, if that's what you're really asking. There was a bit of awkwardness when he changed, but we worked through it. I've also met a few of the other incarnations. What was he like? The other Doctor, I mean."

"Tall, skinny, very young. Brown hair, brown eyes. Blue pinstriped suit and trainers. Bouncing off the walls a bit." Liz smiled at the memory. "Lots of energy. They seemed to get along well, though if they're the same person, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I need your arm." She swiftly prepared Sarah, and started drawing blood as she listened to the other woman's reply.

Sarah snorted, "You never saw our Doctor in the same room with his previous incarnations. Sniping at each other the whole time. But I could see those two getting along. Mostly. Must have been weird for him though. The...look, ours was his Third incarnation and the one he was with was the Tenth, it'll make it easier to differentiate them. Anyway, the Tenth Doctor is the one I ran into five weeks ago. I'm not sure how much that matters in the grand scheme of things, but if it was our child, he wouldn't have been able to tell his previous self. Time paradoxes and such. But back to your story."

Liz switched the full vial for an empty one. "Third and Tenth, then. And you slept with both of them and the Fourth, is it?"

"We weren't very good at ending our relationship." She replied vaguely, not wanting Liz to pursue that line of inquiry.

Liz couldn't help smiling at that. "I never saw a regeneration, it's somewhat difficult to get my mind around. The Tenth seemed very different from his predecessor. But we've digressed. Ours, the Third, came in to the lab with the Tenth Doctor in tow. They were discussing something about some piece of information that would be easier to find in our time than later. There. That should be enough to start with." She started preparing slides with the blood she had drawn.

"I wonder what it was, and why that time, specifically," Sarah said, thoughtfully.

Liz went on, "I do remember the other Doctor talking about getting the baby back to Sarah and ours brushing him off in that way of his. They definitely called the baby "Fred" more than once. When they left the lab the Tenth Doctor said she'd probably sleep until he got back and that I should just go on with my work. Neither said that I shouldn't touch the baby, but it was strongly implied."

"And then Aunt Lavinia and I came in, and she suggested I hold the baby to keep me out of trouble."

"You looked about as awkward as I would have been. I hadn't had much experience with babies at that point," Liz said.

"And you ended up with three. You seem to have done alright. I suppose there's some hope for me," Sarah said dubiously.

"I think you'll be a great mother." Liz smiled encouragingly. "You'll be fun and exciting and not like all the other mums."

"I'll let the kid stay up until all hours of the night and watch too much telly. Besides, sometimes kids like you to be just like other mums. The only pet I've ever had was a tin dog and I managed to break that once. How can I think about being a mother?" Sarah wrapped her arms around her chest.

"I felt the same way when I was expecting Jamie. I found ways to cope, you will too." Liz returned to the original topic. "So, you held the baby and Lavinia and I worked on the virus. Her idea did work by the way. The Doctor was very impressed."

"He rather liked her, when they finally met," Sarah interjected.

"And then, when we were finished, you put the baby back down in the nest of blankets the Tenth Doctor had made for her and left with your aunt. I went back to work and the Doctors came back in about ten minutes later. You just missed them."

"Just as well. That might have been awkward."

"Stop interrupting or I'll never finish, and I'm starting to get hungry. I told our Doctor what Lavinia and I had figured out, while the other one picked up the baby. The Tenth had an odd reaction to your aunt's name, but when I mentioned you'd been playing babysitter...I think I said 'her niece, Sarah', for the record...he just smiled. Our Doctor asked him if that was significant, and the Tenth Doctor said something to the effect of 'that's for me to know and you to find out.' They both laughed at that. Stop giggling. You're not twelve, Sarah." Liz was giggling herself, which spoiled the effect, somewhat.

"Nope, I'm a grown woman of fifty-two who's about to be a mum, but as he once told me 'what's the point of being grown up if you can't be childish.'"

"Words to live by," Liz said pedantically, causing a fresh bout of giggles. "They left shortly after that, and I don't know any more of that story."

"You never held her then?" Sarah asked.

"No. Is that relevant? I suppose I should have been more curious but I was in the middle of that other problem." Liz looked at her expectantly.

"I'm almost certain the baby had two hearts." Her hand slipped to her stomach again.

"Oh. Yeah, that would be relevant."

"I still don't know if she's mine. I've got eight months of pregnancy to go through with heaven knows what sort of complications. My age would be enough to worry about without dealing with cross-species issues and a possibly not-quite-as-extinct-as-I-thought doomsday cult that wants me dead. There is no guarantee that I'll carry this baby to term or that I'll survive childbirth. That romper could end up on another child. Or it could be a different romper. There are probably thousands produced in that pattern. Is something wrong?" Sarah asked, noting the odd look on Liz's face.

She had been in hospital several times, and presumably everything had checked out. No one had mentioned any anomalies at any rate. But Liz's tests would be more thorough, and if Sarah's suspicions were true...she pushed that from her mind. It wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. She pushed it from her mind and looked at Liz expectantly.

Liz started gathering up the samples and locked them in a small safe. "I don't want someone stumbling on this while I'm not here. I have to do some more tests. There's something weird going on here, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. Let me do the tests and I'll let you know as soon as I've got something conclusive. In the meantime, lunch?"

"That sounds good, oddly enough. Can we talk about things other than babies and the Doctor?" Sarah asked.

"Whatever you want." Liz smiled at her. "You'll get through this, I promise."

Sarah didn't think it would be as easy as Liz made it sound, but she kept that to herself. She'd take it a day at a time and hope for the best. There was nothing more she could do at the moment.


	5. Retail Therapy

Sarah forced herself out of bed, thankful that the morning sickness hadn't lasted very long and suddenly wished she had a Gallifreyan guide to pregnancy. At the moment she was just tired from lack of sleep, but the only person she knew who might be able to tell her what to expect was inaccessible.

She rubbed her eyes, trying to force them to focus. Every time she tried to sleep, she was tormented by stray thoughts and regrets and the feeling that this should have been different somehow. And when she was too tired for even her restless mind to keep her awake, she'd wake up screaming from the nightmares.

She couldn't help wishing she wasn't pregnant; that this was the bad dream and she would wake up soon. It wasn't the baby's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, except maybe hers. She'd tried to put a good face on things for her friends, hoping it would raise her spirits, but she could feel the world she'd built for herself starting to crumble and she wasn't sure how long she could keep herself together.

Abortion was out of the question. She'd made a promise once so many years ago. Never mind that the woman she'd made the promise to had died, and the reasons no longer existed. A different Sarah, a lifetime ago. But pride would make her keep her word, that and a sense of survivor's guilt.

After she showered and dressed, she glanced at her calendar to discover that she had actually agreed to go shopping with Jo. Jo had been pestering her since Tegan had gone back to Australia, and in the end Sarah had agreed. It was better to accept the inevitable, after all. There was absolutely no way that Jo wouldn't spend the next eight (or however many) months she had left in her pregnancy hovering over her, as proud as if the baby were Jo's grandchild. She hoped she could stand it.

She fortified herself with toast and tea before leaving the house. Judging by what Jo had said on the phone, today would be a whirlwind tour of maternity and baby supply shops. Sarah didn't intend to buy much, there would be time enough for that later, but Jo had six children of her own and several grandchildren (Sarah was vague on the number and sexes, though she'd seen pictures often enough), so she was counting on her to be a guide through the mysteries of babydom.

By the time Jo drove up, Sarah was waiting on the front steps, as ready for this ordeal as she was ever going to be. As she got into the car, she reminded herself that the Doctor liked Jo and that Jo's brand of dizziness was precisely what she needed. She'd spent too much time worrying over things she couldn't do anything about at the moment, so she pasted on a bright smile and decided that she would put it all out of her mind, at least for the morning.

The shopping expedition ended up being more fun than Sarah had expected. Jo was full of lively opinions on everything from prams to nappies and Sarah found herself laughing more than she had since she'd found out about the baby. And Jo had stayed away from anything but the more general aspects of the pregnancy, so Sarah hadn't had to field any difficult questions, though she suspected that Jo was planning to ambush her at lunch.

After they had ordered, Jo had smiled and Sarah had braced herself, expecting an interrogation. Instead, Jo had proceeded to show off everything she'd bought that morning for her grandchildren. Sarah had only bought a pregnancy book that Jo had pushed on her, wondering how much of the information would be relevant to her situation. She wondered what Jo was waiting for.

It turned out to be the food. Once they had been served, and the waitress had left, Jo said, "I've been thinking about having a get-together for all of us. Not just our little clique but everyone I can come up with who travelled with him. I know the Brigadier has met some of the others and I thought you might have. I've already buttonholed Tegan but the few she knew weren't from Earth."

Sarah thought for a minute. "Well, there's Harry, and I don't know where he is at the moment. Oh, and Rose but I think she's still travelling with him. At least she was when I met her not long ago. I could give you her mother's phone number, but I don't know if that would help. It's been busy every time I've tried it." She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was shove her pregnancy in Rose's face. "The others I've met are either dead or off-planet," she added vaguely hoping Jo wouldn't press for details.

But Jo had other things on her mind. "You ran into him recently, you're being horribly elusive about this pregnancy, and Tegan's certain you two were lovers at some point. Plus you've been having these little whisper sessions with Liz. who seems to have put herself in charge of your pregnancy, despite being a research scientist not an obstetrician. Why would she be doing that unless there was something unusual about your pregnancy? It's his, isn't it? The Doctor's, I mean," she finished triumphantly.

Sarah took a sip of water to cover her shock. She tended to forget that Jo for all her fluffiness, had a brain. There really was no point in prevaricating. "Um, yes. It's his. Liz was rather dubious when I told her, but I needed someone I could trust to keep an eye on things."

Jo looked a little stunned. "I was teasing. I didn't think you had actually slept with him. I've never been certain why Tegan thought that. It's really his baby? No wonder you've been wandering around in a daze. Do you think it'll have two hearts?" She giggled suddenly.

"Liz is running some tests to see what we can figure out about anatomy and genetics. Beyond that, I guess we'll be surprised," Sarah said. "Who knows, maybe your idea of a get-together will draw him out of the woodwork."

"Or make him run in the other direction, screaming in horror. Can you tell anything this early in the pregnancy?" Jo asked. "Don't look at me that way. I was always helpless at science, no matter how hard the Doctor tried to drill it into me."

"Apparently some of the foetal DNA ends up in the mother's bloodstream. I did a freelance article about it a few years ago. They can run all sorts of tests on it, if they can get enough for a proper sample, and their methods for doing that are improving. And in my case we're not worried about genetic defects or paternity. Liz is just trying to get a look at the non-human DNA and extrapolate from there. She's also doing whatever other tests are traditionally done."

"Now my eyes are glazing over," Jo said with a smile. "I can't see the Doctor settling down to happily ever after."

Sarah shrugged. "I wouldn't expect him to. As far as proper parents go, the kid will be horribly lacking."

"Oh, you'll do well enough," Jo reassured her. "I managed and everyone knows I'm a scatterbrain. You're a lot more sensible than I ever was."

"Which explains why you got pregnant after being happily married for over a year, while I was the idiot who had a one night stand with an elusive alien time-traveller. So back to your planned party...."

Jo started to say something, but stopped as she realised that the waitress was coming over to check on them. After they had both reassured her that everything was delicious and that they just wanted the bill, Jo said, "I've got a list. Would you believe I went to drop off a Christmas present at my youngest daughter's science teacher's house - he'd been helping May enormously with Science and Maths, Cliff tries but either gets distracted by his own projects or throws up his hands in exasperation after fifteen minutes - and there was a picture of Mr. Chesterton and his wife and the Doctor's first incarnation. His wife and I spent an hour or two gossiping. May was horribly embarrassed about the whole thing." Jo finally stopped, and Sarah suspected it was because she needed to take a breath.

Sarah couldn't help smiling as she said. "As I was telling Liz the other day, kids whose parents are interesting often grow up wanting to be normal."

"Normal is highly overrated, Sarah. May will grow out of it. The others did. Sarah, you've explored the galaxy and fought monsters, you can't tell me you're afraid of a tiny little baby."

"Not afraid, precisely. More like, I don't know, overwhelmed. I liked my life the way it was, mostly. And it wasn't all that long ago that I looked at the Doctor and finally decided I needed to move on. It's like the universe is playing some big cosmic joke on me." Sarah tried not to sound bitter about it as she reached for the bill. "My treat. You're being wonderful and I've been out of sorts."

"I hadn't noticed." Jo reached for her shopping. "Got your book? Why don't we do some shopping for us? You've still got a few months to go before you're in maternity clothes, and something new might perk up your spirits."

"Oh, why not?" If she went home, she'd end up sitting around and brooding. "Do you want me to do some research? Try to track down other companions?"

"That would be wonderful. Thank you."

Jo's enthusiasm left no doubt in Sarah's mind that this was what Jo had been aiming for all along. She didn't mind. It would give her something to focus on, besides the baby.


	6. Synchronicity

Sarah's mobile rang as she opened the door to her flat. She looked to see who was calling as she waved the others in. "I need to take this. It shouldn't be more than a minute."

Josh grabbed the bag of Indian takeout from her hand. "We'll set the table while we're waiting."

"Thanks. Hi, Liz. Did you get those tests done?" Sarah tried to keep her voice steady. She had spent the past fortnight dreaming up all sorts of possibilities for the look on Liz's face at their last meeting.

"Relax, Sarah. They went smoother than I'd hoped. The foetal DNA isn't completely human, but you knew that. The other blood tests I did were clean, except..." Liz hesitated.

Sarah broke in impatiently, "Except what, Liz?"

"There seem to be some minor anomalies in your own DNA. I don't think it will have any effect on the baby, but I'll do some more tests. I don't suppose you have any idea what might have caused them?"

Sarah replied quietly, mindful of the others, "I dunno. As I said, I was exposed to all sorts of radiation and weird atmospheres during my travels. I imagine that might have some sort of mutation." She knew better. Liz was only confirming what she already suspected. The important thing was that it wasn't anything that would harm the baby. "Anything else? I've got company."

"Just that I should start doing proper prenatal exams. I didn't even think of it before," Liz said briskly. "I was able to do some of the preliminary blood work with the blood I drew last week, but there are other tests I should be doing. And I'm feeling uncomfortable about using the UNIT labs for regular visits, so your place or mine?"

"How about we alternate? Start having dinner together Monday nights or something. I'll start. I'm not promising to cook, but we could order in, say 7:30? Set a regular pattern, so no one becomes suspicious." And make sure I have someone around at least one night a week, Sarah thought. She hadn't been sleeping well, and her depression when she had first found out had scared her.

"Sounds good."

"See you Monday, then."

"Bye."

Sarah hung up the phone, and joined the others in the kitchen. "I'm glad you didn't wait for me. Pass me some of the chicken masala." She grabbed a bottle of Coke out of the fridge and sat down at the table.

"Sarah, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but did you say something about tests?" Nat's concern was obvious.

"Not in the widely accepted sense, but in the I should have had more sense sense. If that makes any sense." Sarah paused. "Sorry, I'm a bit incoherent these days. I was going to tell you both tonight anyway. I'm pregnant."

Josh recovered first. "You're what? How?"

"The usual way. Ran into an ex, had sex with the ex, decided we were better off apart, found out that I'm not too old to skip the birth control, and realized I had no way of contacting the ex. I hope the two of you have better sense," Sarah said. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I know you've been together at least since Italy. I don't know why you felt you had to hide it from me. Were you afraid I'd disapprove? I'm not exactly in a position of high moral ground just now."

Nat smiled at her, "I guess we weren't sure how you'd react." She turned to Josh. "We probably should tell her."

"Tell me what?" Sarah looked from one to the other. "You're getting married," she guessed delightedly.

They both looked sheepish.

Nat said, "Yes, and, um, you aren't the only one who's had birth control issues recently. I'm about eight weeks along. We were thinking about telling you tonight."

Sarah hesitated. She wasn't absolutely certain that her pregnancy would run the traditional nine months, but she'd deal with that when she had to. "I'm about the same." She grinned suddenly at Nat. "This is weird. Almost a relief though. The last people I told were all at the grandmothery stage of things."

Josh said, "The wedding will be in a month or so. We want to keep it as low key as possible, after everything else that's happened recently. So, eight weeks, would this be the friend you ran into at Deffrey Vale?"

"That's the one. He's the one I told you about, Nat, who I used to travel with. I ran into him unexpectedly and promptly started behaving like the girl in that awful Cher song who hears her ex is back in town and is telling her friends to help her be strong, but the moment she sees him again falls right back into the same bad habits." Sarah took a sip of her soft drink. "It's not a healthy relationship, and maybe it never was, but no one else ever compared to him. I've spent most of my life trying to convince myself to get over him and it never worked."

Nat smiled at her. "If you were planning to tell us tonight, then the call can't have been about the pregnancy test."

Sarah nodded. "Just the usual prenatal tests, to catch any potential problems. The results were all clean, so that's one less thing to worry about. I imagine there will be more tests later on. There's too much of a chance of complications at my age. It's still not quite real to me. I never intended to have children."

"I wasn't expecting to be a father quite so soon, either." Josh reached over and squeezed her hand, "Sarah, if there's anything we can do?"

"I'll remember that when I need babysitters," Sarah joked. "Seriously, though, there is a favour I've been meaning to ask you, Josh."

"Ask away."

"I'd like to read Duke Giuliano's journals."

"You don't believe in them, Sarah, why would you want to...?" Josh stopped, unsure of his ground.

"I believe there was a Duke Giuliano, Josh. I believe that the White Chapter and the Crimson Chapter exist, and that their actions are motivated by the contents of that book. I should have thought of this in Italy, instead of blindly assuming that the whole thing was nonsense. I need to know what might happen next, for the sake of my baby." Sarah hoped she didn't sound too hysterical.

Nat asked, "How could you have known, Sarah? We didn't even know about the existence of the cult until Italy, after everyone involved was dead."

"Except Josh. What's the old saying – 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'. Once I knew about the Orbus Postremo, I knew that the White Chapter had to have placed someone close to me, someone who I trusted. The two of you, Liz, and Jo. And I knew it wasn't Liz or Jo." Anyone who had travelled with the Doctor would have started with a different set of assumptions.

Josh started to say something, but she forestalled him.

"I knew one of the two of you had to be members of the white chapter," she reiterated and then continued, "and I was certain of you after the incident in the crypt. It took me a while to piece the rest of it together, and for a while I wasn't sure if Nat was also involved." She paused.

Josh said sharply, "Nat was never a part of it. You have to believe me."

"I know that now, but at the time it just seemed too great a coincidence that her trip to Italy would bring the cult to my attention. I'm a better actress than you ever gave me credit for - I've known you were Donald Wakefield's son within twenty-four hours after I met you. At the time, I just put it down to wanting to escape your father's shadow, and as someone with way too many secrets in her own past...." Sarah couldn't help feeling she had said too much, but that had always been her problem. Too many secrets. It was time to let some of them go and to trust Nat and Josh to understand her choices.

Nat's gaze shifted from one to the other, "I never knew you suspected me. Is that why you didn't tell me about Josh?"

Sarah said softly, "The habits of a lifetime are hard to break, especially when the truth is stranger than any fiction I could possibly dream up. I'm sorry." She stood up and moved to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. "I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry if now or in the past it seemed like I was playing games with your lives. I'm not even telling you everything now and I'm sorry about that. I have a ruthless streak, honed by experiences that...I've seen too many people die. She turned to Josh, "I make a fuss about guns because I never want to have to use one again, though the way my life is going, I suspect someday I'll have to pick one up again."

Nat shook off her stunned look and said, "That's why you took the job at Planet Three. You must have nightmares about those years as a war correspondent."

"I took the job as a war correspondent to escape worse horrors and to give a plausible reason for the PTSD I was suffering. One of those things that I'm not ready to talk about yet." Probably not ever, it wasn't something she wanted to remember, let alone discuss with anyone.

Nat said gently, "Sarah, that doesn't matter. It isn't as though we hadn't noticed that you don't like to talk about your past much. The important thing is that we're your friends and you can trust us with whatever you're willing to talk about."

"Which is why I'm telling you this now. Because the Crimson Chapter hasn't gone away and I may have other enemies out there who aren't going to stop coming after me, just because I'm pregnant. And I've got something else to ask you both, which is going to sound horribly irrational."

Josh said, "You've put up with some rather irrational requests from me and for what it's worth, you've been very respectful of my beliefs even if you didn't share them and I appreciate that."

"Except for that deranged cultist snipe the other day. And I am sorry about that."

Josh smiled. "I took that as a sign that things were alright between us again. Whatever you need, Sarah, I mean it. And I'll arrange for a copy of the journal for you. I should have thought of what you suggested earlier, that it was a catalyst for the Crimson Chapter's actions, and might give clues to what they're going to do next."

Sarah laid a hand on his shoulder, "Thanks, Josh. You're a good friend. And I appreciate you both for putting up with some of my foibles. If I'm injured, or something happens with the pregnancy, I don't want to be taken to hospital. My doctor is Liz Shaw, who you've met, Josh, and I'll introduce to Nat soon. Contact her. No other medical treatment, except basic first aid and absolutely no aspirin. If Harry Sullivan were to show up, I'd trust him with my medical care. No one else. And I can't explain why at the moment, it's too complicated and too unbelievable. I'm asking for trust that I know I haven't earned, and I feel like a hypocrite after the way I went after Josh for lying to me." It sounded so bizarre, saying it out loud, like that. She hoped they would accept it.

"Sarah, you were mad at me because I'd lied about something concerning you. I get the feeling that this isn't related to us at all. Does your baby's father have enemies we should know about? Do you?" Josh's concern was obvious.

"Um. Yes and yes. I don't know that it will be an issue, and I'm trying to stay under the radar. It isn't...he has a dangerous life and if people knew the baby was his, it might mean trouble for me and the baby."

Josh joked, "Sounds like James Bond or something."

"Or something," Sarah echoed. "I wish I could say that I'm keeping quiet because you're safer if you don't know, but that isn't really the case. It's just complicated and a bit unbelievable."

"Sarah, after the whole cult business, I'd believe just about anything about your past," Nat said with a smile. "But in the end, it's your decision. Just remember we're here for you if you need us."

"I know, and I appreciate that. Liz accused me of holding people at arms length and I'm trying to change that. It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime, though." She smiled suddenly, and started clearing away the empty containers. "Not to fall into cliché, but would anyone like some ice cream?"

"I, for one will embrace the cliché, Sarah. I'd love some." Nat reached out and caught her hand. "Sarah, I don't care how dangerous your life is. You're not to think of missing the wedding. Hush. I know you were considering it."

"I've endangered you enough, Nat," Sarah said, as she got the ice cream out of the freezer. "But I'd rather believe that maybe things will be okay. I tell you what, if I'm not actively being pursued by someone who wants to kill me, I promise to show up."

"That's good enough for me," Josh placed the bowls and spoons on the table. "It'll be alright, Sarah."

"I hope you're right, Josh, but I have a bad feeling about the next few months."


	7. Remember When

Sarah sank down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes with a sigh of relief, wondering what had possessed her to agree to wear high heels. She had every intention of sticking to flats for the rest of her pregnancy.

She'd had a rather expensive dinner with Josh and Nat, his treat. She couldn't remember when she'd seen either of them so happy, burbling on about the wedding, which they'd decided to postpone until October, after the baby was born, to give them a chance to plan a "proper wedding" as Nat had put it. Sarah suspected Josh would be just as happy to elope, but Nat clearly had him wrapped around her little finger. This was probably good for both of them. Josh's focus on her, as the herald, could be a little unnerving at times.

So, Nat had her prince and a fairytale ending (if not in quite the usual order) while she, having started to add up how much a baby would cost, had to start looking for freelance work. She wouldn't endanger her baby doing investigative work if she had any choice, but she'd written straight scientific articles in the past, and she made a few calls to some of the magazines, feeling out the current trends and topics.

She suddenly noticed that her teeth were chattering, and cursed, wishing K-9 were tall enough to make her a cup of tea. She wrapped the quilt that had become a permanent feature in the living room around her shoulders, and headed to the kitchen, envying Nat and her normal pregnancy.

Sarah had thought she was so lucky when the nausea had disappeared early, and then the bouts of hypothermia had started. Either the baby or her own body had decided that she was too warm and kept trying to dump the excess heat. The problem was that her human body couldn't handle this. She hoped her body would find some equilibrium, because the alternative scared her.

Once she had the cup of tea in hand and she'd stopped shivering, she started thinking about what she'd do that night. The nights themselves never bothered Sarah. When it was dark, she could see the stars, and remember that she had walked among them once. But when she tried to sleep, she tossed and turned restlessly, unable to turn her mind off, or fell into an uneasy sleep plagued with nightmares that had grown worse as the baby grew inside her. And at 2 in the morning there was no one she could call...not every night. So she found other things to occupy her mind.

She saved the nights for thinking about the baby. Making plans and lists first, then starting on some of the many things she needed to do before she gave birth. Most nights this worked...focusing on the future, rather than the past. Hoping that she wouldn't mess up her child's life with her own pain and grief.

The lists were simple, drawn at first from the book she had bought with Jo. Things the baby would need. Things that had to be done before the baby arrived. Things she wanted to do before she was tied down. And then came the other lists. People she would trust to watch her half human child. Places and people to keep the child away from. UNIT and Torchwood headed the last list. Their priorities would be different from hers, and she wasn't willing to see her baby as a guinea pig or a hostage to her father's good behaviour.

And after that she had started working her way through them. It seemed like there was so much to be done, starting with clearing out the spare room to use as a nursery. All the debris of her life, packaged in boxes, that she hadn't opened in many years, just moved from place to place, one step ahead of whomever was trying to kill her that week. Working her way through a box or two a night, she thought the room would be clear in a month or so.

First, Sarah sorted through her Aunt Lavinia's belongings, knowing those would be the easiest to deal with. She brought a box at a time to the living room, and worked at it with the telly going, figuring out what she wanted to keep, and what she could give away. She gave Liz her aunt's notes and other research at one of their weekly dinners, and told her to keep it or pass it along to whomever would benefit from it.

Once she'd finished that task, she had started on her own boxes. These were all marked with a date or a location, things she had boxed up when she moved, but had never bothered to unpack. The things she had kept from her school years went quickly. The objects in the boxes might as well have belonged to a stranger, she didn't remember any of them. This was no surprise to her, she'd known for quite some time that she couldn't trust her own memories to match up with what the world thought had happened. History had changed while she had travelled out of time, and she had never quite caught up. Until she had held the romper in her hands and talked about that day with Liz, she hadn't even trusted that memory.

Next had been the boxes from her flat in Croydon, when the Doctor was still working (mostly) for UNIT. The Brigadier had arranged to have that flat packed up and her belongings stored when they left for good. Business suits that no longer fit, pictures of them together. Looking at some of the photos, Sarah was surprised that more people hadn't thought they were lovers. He always had a hand on her shoulder, her arm or her waist. She'd given up the business suit look after they left Earth. She'd never really liked them, and once she no longer needed to impress people with her professionalism, she had stopped wearing them.

She was surprised to find an early model sonic screwdriver tucked away in a corner of one of the boxes. She remembered nicking it early on. There was a newer model in her handbag, slipped out of his pocket at Deffrey Vale when they said good-bye. It was too useful and he could always build a new one. Convincing Rose that she couldn't work it had been one of her better tricks, and had proved useful in diffusing the tension between them.

Another box, of the goodies she had packed up when he'd been called back to Gallifrey and left her on Earth. She smiled wryly when she found another sonic screwdriver nestled in between the red striped overalls and the stuffed owl and wondered if he'd ever noticed that she'd 'borrowed' them. She put it with the other one. It couldn't hurt to have a backup or three. She also found more photographs, ones she hadn't wanted to look at after he'd left without saying good-bye. She bought frames and put them up around the house. She'd given up on the possibility of moving on when she had realised she was pregnant and he should at least have a presence in the home where his daughter would grow up.

After that Sarah had taken a break from the boxes, as she was pressed into service helping with the presumably imminent wedding. Somehow focusing on that had eased her mind a bit and sleep had come easier, though that might have been pure exhaustion. And it had helped to be thinking about someone else. Nat's constant panic attacks had been a relief because they kept her too busy to dwell on the past.

Now that they had decided to postpone it, she had to jump right back in. The boxes wouldn't sort themselves, and the baby would need the room soon enough. She wasn't showing yet, but she couldn't button most of her jeans. She had to do the best she could for their child's sake.

As she sorted through the next box, she found more photographs. After he had left Tegan off the second time, he'd brought Turlough round for tea and sympathy. Being the Doctor, there had also been alien vines threatening to engulf London. When she saw the photos, she recalled that the Brigadier had taken them after the danger was past. And there was another anomaly in her memories. She distinctly remembered him being at UNIT until 1980, when she had returned from Aberdeen, but the Doctor and Turlough both swore he'd been working at St. Brendan's by 1977.

She had bought extra frames, in case she found more photographs, and now she picked one of the best pictures and placed it on the mantle, next to the others she had found. Tomorrow, she'd put the rest in the photo album she had started for her baby.

The rest of the box was less interesting. More clothes that no longer fit, and a handful of odds and ends she had just tossed in. She went through another, equally boring box before deciding to give up for the night.

She pulled the quilt a little tighter around herself and started going through the mail, instead. A few bills and a cheque - payment for reviews and stories she had written for a science magazine. She was doing well enough, and the money her Aunt Lavinia had left her would act as a buffer, but if she relied only on that, she'd be in trouble by the end of the pregnancy.

A small box, containing some brand new gadgets with a request for reviews by the same magazine. The last things she had reviewed for the magazine, she'd nearly referred to as 'primitive', before remembering they weren't for this time and place. She laid those aside to play with later.

The last item in the pile was a letter addressed in an unfamiliar messy handwriting. The return address was Jackie Tyler's flat, confirming her suspicions. She slit the envelope open and found a note and some photos, taken three months ago in Deffrey Vale. Flipping through the photos, she smiled when she realised that he'd labelled them on the back in his own unique style. Her Gallifreyan was a bit rusty, but by the time she reached the bottom of the stack she was laughing. She set aside one of just the two of them to be placed on the mantle with the others.

The note was typical and made her smile.

My Sarah Jane,

I know you were planning to get on with your life, but I thought you'd like these. It was actually Rose's idea to send them. _(Of course, he would never have thought of it.)_ You humans seem to be fond of such things. Anyway, you should probably know that we left ~~Ricky~~Mickey off in an alternate universe, that was nearly taken over by Cybermen. New ones. Not affected by gold, in case you ever run into them, not that it's likely. _(And yet, where the Doctor was involved, probabilities were usually inverted, so that was good to know.)_

So, if you need to get in contact with me, you've got Jackie's address, and I think Rose's mobile number. _(Not for what she needed to tell him. That would just be awkward. Misses and the ex, indeed.)_ You won't need to. You're probably having brilliant adventures of your own. And besides, Jackie's the sort who'd read my mail. _(Like mother, like daughter, Sarah suspected.)_

I noticed that you've nicked another screwdriver. I'd forgot that bad habit of yours. Try to remember the whole 'anachronistic tech' thing and don't wave it about too much in public. _(Said the pot to the kettle)_

I hope K-9 is behaving himself. _(Speaking of anachronistic tech.)_ Give him a scratch behind the antennae for me.

Your Doctor

P.S. Rose just told me she's got a wedding to go to on 22nd June and she'll be at the hen night the night before. Maybe we could have dinner, if it doesn't interfere with that wonderful life you're having. Give me an excuse to not be alone with Jackie. _(If she could work it so she didn't run into Rose. Being obviously pregnant would make a meeting uncomfortable.)_

P.P.S. Setting 12247A on the sonic screwdriver will pull up a list of functions, including some you might not have discovered yet. _(So he wasn't planning on asking for it back. That was good.)_  
You've probably figured out most of the basics. You were one of my more mechanically-minded companions. I mean you were good with mechanical things, not that you're mechanical - that would be K-9. 42B7^ pulls up the medical scanner. Database of over a thousand races, including humans. _(And Gallifreyan, presumably. She wished she had known about that sooner.)_ 223* will open just about any lock. A64$ is the mp3 player and 34d26 will bring up the unit conversion software. Play around with it, but don't use setting v546 - you're apt to blow a hole in whatever you're pointing it at.

P.P.P.S. Miss you horribly. Wish you had come with us. Rose is becoming clingy.

P.P.P.P.S. Ignore that last P.S.. Pretend I didn't say it. You're having a brilliant life of your own. _(Sarah decided to ignore this one instead. Knowing he missed her helped, since she wasn't sure how he'd react to being a father. She brushed her fingers lightly against her slightly swollen stomach. She could wait a few more months.) _ Be happy, Sarah Jane.

P.P.P.P.P.S. If anyone ever makes you feel like you're too old to do something, remember that I've got a thousand years on you. It's your life, Sarah. Don't let anyone tell you what to do.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I forgot what I was going to say. Oh yes. Setting 1v42s, very handy for softening butter.

By the time she finally finished the note, her smile had grown into a grin, and she murmured, "That's your daddy in a nutshell, baby." She opened her laptop, so that she could make a note of the date. 21st June - she'd be about six months along by then. She could manage three more months alone.

In the meantime, there was another bit of useful information tucked in the letter. She dug the sonic screwdriver (the new one) out of her handbag, did a quick scan of her body and studied the readout. Despite the 'extrapolated data from divergent biological sources' note, everything seemed to be within healthy parameters. It also gave her a surprising amount of information about the development of the baby. She read quickly through the medical data which she would pass on to Liz, who would understand the consequences better.

She frowned when she noticed an estimated due date of December, if she had the conversion right. Sarah tapped in the code for converting dates...December it was. Lovely, she was going to be pregnant for close to a year. She'd been hoping that the pregnancy would be closer to a human term, it was her body after all. But apparently, estimating from the current stage of her pregnancy, she'd be going a full Gallifreyan term. And given that Nat and Josh knew the date of conception, she wasn't sure if she could fudge that enough. Especially since she and Nat were supposedly at the same stage of their pregnancy. Even counting from when she told them would be ten months.

She put the letter on the mantle, she'd find a better place for it later, and set back to work on the next box. She still had a few more hours to go before she'd be tired enough to fall into an exhausted sleep, she might as well sort a few more boxes in the meantime. Sarah hesitated over the next box, marked 'Brighton', before deciding she'd save that one for last. Not a piece of her past she wanted to deal with tonight.

She moved on to a box from her war correspondent years and turned on the telly and the DVD player. There was nothing like an interstellar war, involving a president who looked eerily like the face she saw in the mirror each day to take her mind off of her own problems. She thought idly that if they were ever in the same place at the same time, people would think they were Cylons. She laughed and focused on the episode and the box and tried not to think about anything else.


	8. Think of the Children

"Sarah, Josh, I can't believe you're being so irresponsible. In case you've forgotten you both have babies to worry about now."

Nat had been yelling for some time, and Sarah had tried all of the rational arguments - like 'I did ask them nicely to stop trying to kill me, but they insisted on attacking anyway', but it hadn't helped. Now she was left curled up on the sofa, hoping Nat would run out of breath, and feeling that her friend was being unreasonable.

Josh was still attempting to defend himself however ineffectually. "Nat, what was I supposed to do? They wanted to kill her. There was nothing I could do to change that."

Sarah could tell his heart wasn't in the argument, though. Impending fatherhood had made him a little more cautious. She, on the other hand....

"Do you even want this baby, Sarah? You certainly don't act like it. Most women would be bubbling over with excitement, but you've barely reacted. It's like you're pretending your baby doesn't exist. Look at this room." Nat waved her hand dramatically. "No catalogues or baby books. When I talk to you about names or baby furniture or baby anything, you zone out. Don't think I haven't noticed. Have you even thought about where the baby is going to sleep?"

"I've got a spare bedroom."

"Crammed full of boxes we moved from flat to flat, that you never bother to open," Nat snapped.

Sarah suddenly pushed herself up off the sofa in irritation. "I've actually sorted through most of them. I've got another five months to think of these things and I'm not going to go crazy over them." She paced across the room resisting the urge to add something to the effect of 'if you weren't so wrapped up in your own baby, you would have noticed'. It wasn't Nat's fault, and Sarah knew she was being irrational.

"Sarah," Nat said gently. "You're already starting to show. How long until you have trouble doing the heavy work yourself? It's not as though the father's around."

Sarah heard the implied question, "No, he hasn't shown up, and as I told you I have no way of contacting him. You think I can't manage a baby by myself," she added tightly.

"I think in a few months some of the things that you haven't done to get ready for the baby, will be a lot harder." Nat rolled her wheelchair over to Sarah's side. "And Josh and I have our own baby to think of. We're happy to help, but...."

"...timing is everything," Sarah finished, slightly sarcastically. "Okay, fine. You want me to plan, I'll plan, but I'm not going to go overboard with it. What do you think I should be thinking about? Skip stuff like the name or anything else mental."

Josh smiled at her. Sarah couldn't help feeling like she'd been a good little girl who deserved a pat on the head. But at the moment the one thing she was holding on to was the belief, however tenuous, that she had seen her little girl, and that despite the Crimson Chapter's plans, the baby would be born alive. So she had to start thinking practically and to fight off her automatic response of 'it wasn't supposed to be this way' and her general inertia.

"Let's start with the spare bedroom. You said you're almost finished going through the boxes. If we were to come over on Saturday, we could help you paint it." Josh said, then turning to Nat, he asked, "Next weekend's good, isn't it?"

"Hardly," Nat checked her palm pilot. "The weekend after would work. Okay, Sarah, first decision. We can come over on the Saturday after next to help you, or you do it yourself over the next fortnight and remember we'll be checking up on you."

Sarah bowed to the inevitable, mentally considering the contents of the remaining boxes. She was starting to settle down here, after years of flitting from flat to flat, one step ahead of the Crimson Chapter, and they did have a point. Arranging the room would be easier in a group setting. "I'll unpack the rest of the boxes over the next fortnight and then have a decorating party on Saturday. One of my friends is in from Australia next week to visit her daughter. You met Tegan, Josh. I can probably persuade her and Jo and Liz to help and I'll provide the food. What else?"

"Have you decided on a colour for the baby's room or decorations?" Nat asked quickly.

Prydonian colours, Sarah thought and then winced. No. Bad idea all around, even if they weren't a garish combination of scarlet and orange. "Not sure what colours, but I was thinking of putting some of those glow in the dark stars up on the ceiling." She'd have to think about how she'd arrange the stars. The view from Earth would be the easiest, but...she wondered if K-9's databanks contained star charts.

Nat looked at her interestedly. "You didn't tell us you knew it would be a boy."

"Girls can go into space too, you know," Sarah said pointedly, making Nat wince. "Sorry, I didn't mean that to be so sharp."

"It was a stupid thing to say," Nat said sheepishly. "So, a space theme."

"Well, night sky, perhaps. Although I wouldn't object to space." Child of two worlds. One of which she'd never have the chance to see.

"How about this?" Josh said, interrupting her train of thought, to her relief. "If you'll pick out the paint and whatever other decorations you want, we'll supply the food for you and whoever else you get to help, and help you paint the room."

They continued to talk, but the atmosphere wasn't nearly as tense as it had started. Sarah supposed it was a good idea. She'd been standing in place since she'd found out about the baby and it was time to move forward, to try to make this work.

Tegan, Liz and Jo quickly agreed to the plan, when she asked them. Jo asked if she minded another warm body or two. She seemed determined to widen their little circle of companions. Sarah had always known that Jo was the sort of woman who went about organising reunions of her primary school and Brownie pack, and she couldn't help thinking that this was at the very least, a less clichéd way of spending her time.


	9. Domestic Disputes

Sarah pressed a palm against her slightly swollen belly as she peeked round the corner of the building and wondered how she had got herself into this mess. Not the baby - she remembered all too clearly how she had managed that. And not the running from the crazy cultist who wanted her (and her baby) dead. No, her biggest problem at the moment was that she had agreed to meet Nat and Jo for a knitting lesson and she was going to be late if she didn't find a way to lose or stop the man who was following her.

She saw him running along the street and resorted to an old trick - she tripped him. A little bit of Venusian Aikido and he was soon out cold in the alleyway. She debated leaving him there, with a note that said 'better luck next time', but decided against it, choosing instead to find a policeman and report an attempted mugging.

The paperwork took a little time, but she was only fifteen minutes late when she arrived at Jo's door. Sarah was relieved to see Nat's car in the driveway, Jo's house could be difficult to find, but she was not looking forward to this ordeal. Nat had already put their plan to decorate the baby's room off twice, and Sarah had decided she'd rather wait until the dates worked out. Surprisingly, their pregnancies hadn't brought them closer together - they actually seemed to be driving them further apart. Part of the reason she'd agreed to come today, was in the hopes that it would be a bonding experience, never mind that she'd rather be watching James Bond than learning to knit.

Sarah felt Nat's disapproval whenever they were in the same room these days. Nat clearly didn't think her a proper mother, between the life or death clashes with the Crimson Chapter acolytes and her apparent lack of that whole nesting instinct thing. Whilst Nat was burbling over widdle bitty baby clothes and cots and things, Sarah had a total of one baby outfit - the one Liz had bought - and nothing else. She didn't see the point in buying anything yet. The baby wouldn't be born for ages. The sonic screwdriver gave her a different due date each time she used it, but the earliest had been the end of October. As it was only the end of May, Sarah didn't see any reason to rush into things.

When Jo had offered to teach Sarah knitting, she nearly refused. Knitting seemed like such a cliché, but Nat had wanted to learn and Sarah had been seizing every opportunity to be sociable. Staying at home and brooding about what should have been wasn't going to help her, or the baby for that matter. So she accepted, on the condition that she could bring Nat along.

Cliff answered the door and directed her to a room Jo referred to as her study, though Sarah suspected that Jo only called it that because she liked the way it sounded. As she approached she could hear Nat and Jo talking.

"Have you met the mysterious father?" Nat was asking as Sarah walked into the room.

Jo nodded. "Bit of a shock when I found out about them. I always thought of him as more of a father figure."

"You wouldn't think that now," Sarah couldn't resist saying, though that was approaching dangerous ground. She turned to Nat, "I see you found the place."

"No problem. You, on the other hand, are late." Nat's eyes glinted with amusement. "Or maybe early."

"It sounded like I arrived just in time. Has she been grilling you, Jo?"

"You find that surprising, Sarah. I take it she's never met the Doctor. Here take these. Did you find some wool?" Jo handed her a set of knitting needles.

"To take your questions in order, no and yes." Sarah displayed a skein of garish multi-coloured wool.

"Not going for subtle, are you Sarah?" Nat showed off the more subdued shade of yellow that she had chosen.

Jo giggled. "You've definitely never met the Doctor. He'll probably love it."

"If he ever sees it." Sarah met Jo's eyes. "I did hear from him...a note with pictures from the last time we met. His current travelling companion will be in town for a wedding in June, and he suggested we meet for dinner the night before, while she's attending the hen night. We'll see if it works out." She explained to Nat, "His plans, well, they don't always go as planned."

"Now let me show you how to cast on. There, I think you've got it. Sarah, that's the beauty of my idea. As I've been talking to people about this little get-together I'm planning, I've been telling them to pass on a message if they happen to run into him. Don't look at me like that. I've just been saying that you need to talk to him about something. I have better sense than to drop that little bombshell into this community. I'm trying to plan a gathering of all the people who've travelled with the Doctor over the years," Jo explained to Nat. "See this isn't hard, Sarah."

"I think I'd feel more comfortable building a baby monitor from scratch."

"Why would you need to, when you have K-9?" Jo picked up her own knitting.

"I'm sure he'd love that. I got one of those Roomba vacuum cleaners and he's been sulking ever since. When he's not chasing it around the room."

"See, I should have known the Doctor liked you best. He never gave me a robot dog."

"He liked you too, just in a different way. And you're madly in love with your husband, so why are you complaining?"

Jo stuck her tongue out at Sarah.

"I hope that by the time I'm your age, I'm a little more mature," Nat commented. "K-9 was a gift from the Doctor. Doesn't he have a proper name? Is this right?" She displayed her knitting and Sarah was instantly jealous.

"Not really. Though he used to go by John Smith occasionally." She looked closer at Nat's knitting. "Perfect."

"Jo, on a more serious note, is there a Jack Harkness on your list?" Sarah frowned at her knitting, which didn't look quite right. She looked enviously at Nat.

"No, should there be?"

"Let me get back to you on that. I've placed him with the Doctor and Rose Tyler, who I mentioned last time, but his name came up in reference to something else I'm working on - a story about the ghosts that have started appearing around London - and I want to investigate further before you contact him. There's something odd going on there." Sarah had promised herself that she wouldn't get involved in another investigation until after the baby was born, but curiosity had got the better of her.

"Should you really be investigating things in your condition?" Jo asked. "Oh, let me see that." She grabbed the knitting from Sarah's hands. "You're twisting your stitches. See here. You want to stick the needle in from this side. This is what it's supposed to look like."

"Oh, I see now. And as for the investigation, it's nothing dangerous. Just a little background information on what's causing the ghost shift. Undercover work at a place called Torchwood." Sarah had purposely waited until now to tell Nat about it. "I've got a low level position there and I start tomorrow. If it looks like I might be in danger, I'll get out of there. I've got enough people trying to kill me, already. But I also need to keep working to cover expenses."

She knew she should be thinking about the baby, and doing something safer, but the ghost shift had spooked her, and there wasn't much left that did. She'd grown accustomed to being the one who noticed abnormalities and saw the dangers others ignored. Saving the world was what she did and being pregnant hadn't turned that instinct off. She couldn't tell them that; she knew they wouldn't understand.

"Didn't your Aunt Lavinia leave you some money?" Nat displayed three neat inches of baby blanket.

"Show off." Sarah was still struggling with the first row. "She left me some money, but babies are expensive. I'm not worried about where the next meal is coming from, I'm worried about future expenses - schooling and such."

"And even if she does manage to reach him, the Doctor is unreliable and rather vague about money."

"He sounds like a bit of a character," Nat said. "Oh, come on. You've got to tell me more."

Sarah finally finished the row without errors. "You wouldn't believe some of the stories we could tell about him." She caught Jo's eye and shook her head. It would be one thing if the Doctor were here babbling on about being a thousand-year-old alien, it always sounded so much more sane when he said it. She thought about ways to change the subject. "The one thing you two have in common, besides actually being good at knitting, is that you've both been trying to get me more excited about the baby. You've got me at your mercy. Why don't you tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

Jo winced. "Sarah, I never intended for you to feel that way."

"No, you just think I don't care about this child. You think that if I'm not babbling happily about baby names and nursery plans, there must be something wrong with me." At least Jo had reacted, Nat was just staring at her like she'd grown two heads. "I don't...I can't...." The words just wouldn't come. "I never intended for this to happen, but if it had to, why now, why not when I was younger and less set in my ways?" Less damaged, she thought. "And okay, not being able to reach the Doctor is bothering me more than I realised. I'm sorry I don't seem to be as, I don't know, enthusiastic as you expect me to be, but even if this had happened in my twenties - if I'd fallen in love with some nice normal bloke, got married and did things in the proper way - fluff and frills isn't the way I'd have handled it."

Sarah heard the hysteria in her voice and stopped, trying somehow to get herself under control. Nat and Jo weren't the problem, the real issue was that she suspected they were right, that she should be more concerned about the baby and more excited and that the baby deserved a better mother than she could ever be. She had never let Calla affect her this way, even at her most condescending, but now everything the other woman had ever said to her kept running through her head, reminding her of the promises she'd made that were now impossible to keep.

"Sarah," Nat said finally, softly, "I never realised it upset you so much. I've been so happy about Josh and our baby, and yes, it does seem sometimes like you resent your baby, and I worry a bit about how it will be for you when the baby is born, when you're struggling to take care of it alone."

"You're afraid I'll take my anger out on the baby. That I'm too cynical to be a proper mother." She couldn't blame Nat for that. More than once the other woman had been subject to the hard choices Sarah had been required to make. "I'm not. I promise you that. I would never harm the baby, I just...I worry that given my lifestyle, I won't be able to take care of it properly." Calla had believed that. And now that she was gone and there was no way to raise the baby the way she had wanted Sarah to, she was feeling inadequate. And now that Sarah had no choice in the matter, she couldn't help worrying that Calla had been right.

"Sarah, I want to believe that, I really do. But it isn't just that you're not interested in preparing for the baby, it's that you don't seem to realise that it's one thing to risk your own life, but now you're risking your baby as well. You say there's nothing dangerous about this Torchwood investigation, but somehow danger seems to find you anyway. I know you have enemies, that it isn't necessarily deliberate, but then you go and do something like this." Nat looked down at her knitting, avoiding Sarah's eyes.

"I guess my priorities are different from yours. Or perhaps what I'm prepared to do to ensure the safety of my baby." She gestured with her own knitting. "I'm not as interested in making a cosy nest for my baby, as making the world that he or she will grow up in safe. I can see the other side, but the only time my nesting instincts were woken to that degree, was in a situation where it would have been insane to become pregnant. All I'm intending is a little reconnaissance. A fortnight and I'm out. And if I find anything dangerous, I'll alert UNIT and pull out sooner."

"I think you two need to agree to disagree," Jo said. "Sarah, it isn't the choice I would have made, but your life has been different from mine. Nat, one thing you'll learn quickly as a new mother is that everyone has a different approach to motherhood, it doesn't make one right and the other wrong. In the interests of peace, I think we'll try something a little different." She put her knitting aside, stood up and walked over to her desk.

"Why do I suddenly have a desire to bolt?" Sarah asked with a grin, relieved that Jo had diffused the situation.

"Oh, it's not that bad," Jo said, although the tone of her voice implied otherwise.

Sarah looked at her suspiciously, "Dare I ask?"

"Oh, come on Sarah, it'll be fun. You need to have more fun." Nat put down her knitting.

"Embrace the fluff, is that it?" Sarah asked dryly, but she took the other.

"You're taking this all too seriously, Sarah. Have a little fun. Whenever we force you into some baby related activity, you have fun, don't you?" Jo was at her most bubbly. "Having a baby isn't supposed to be doom and gloom and saving the world from the forces of evil."

"Oh, alright." Sarah pasted a smile on her face, determined to enjoy whatever Jo had cooked up, even if it killed her. "So what are these for, anyway?"

"I figured this would be fun if you got frustrated by the knitting, so you've got plain white babygro and fabric markers. A quick and easy craft, so that you both could go home with something completed for your babies."

Nat suddenly smiled. "How about this, Sarah, I'll make one for your baby and you make one for mine. And I promise not to put hearts and flowers on this one."

"Are you sure you want to do that? You're a much better artist than I am."

"I'm sure. Sarah, I know we've been having problems recently, but you're one of my best friends, and I don't want to lose you. I just want you to be happy, and when I see you like this, with dark circles under your eyes and barely holding it together, it worries me." Nat placed a hand on Sarah's. "If this keeps on you might want to seek professional help."

"I'm trying, Nat." She couldn't exactly tell a therapist what was troubling her. Not when she found it hard sometimes to believe it herself. Nightmares of a war that had happened far away from Earth. Not something she could explain to Nat, either.

"If you're going to do that, why don't you surprise each other? Nat, come and work on my desk; Sarah you stay there."

Sarah set to work on the babygro, considering for a moment before drawing a puzzle piece design all over the garment, and then colouring in the pieces with various bright colours.

Nat focused on her own work and Sarah noticed that she was looking at a book from Jo's shelves and didn't seem to be using any colour but black. Jo had picked up her knitting again and was watching the proceedings with a grandmotherly air, obviously pleased that her refereeing had gone so well. Silence fell over the group as each focused on their own work.

Finally, Nat looked up and said, "Done," just as Sarah finished the one she was working on. They swapped and Nat burst out, "Oh, that is so cute." Sarah had thought it workman like at best and she was relieved that her friend liked it.

Sarah just grinned at the one Nat had made for her, allowing the squeals to die down before she giggled and said, "You know me too well."

"It seemed appropriate since the only thing you've decided on for the nursery was glow-in-the-dark stars." Nat had drawn familiar Earth constellations all over the babygro.

After much admiration from Jo, they returned to their knitting in better spirits, and Sarah found she was getting along better. Nat's was still neater and she'd knitted more, but Sarah had a couple of inches to show for the afternoon's work when she left, and she'd decided to make it part of her cover, and knit at lunchtime while she was investigating Torchwood. A nice, harmless activity for nice, harmless Marie Carter.


	10. A Slight Miscalculation

Sarah had spent the better part of the last month positioning herself at Torchwood under a false identity, and she wasn't planning to allow the Doctor to expose her. If she had been able to get him alone, it would have been be one thing, but he had moved through the corridors surrounded by an entourage. Better to lay low for the moment, and wait for a better time.

She had honestly thought that this would be a simple reconnaissance mission. Find out about Torchwood and the ghost shift and then get out as neatly as possible, after which she'd decide what, if anything, she was planning to publish.

At first, everything had gone as planned. She had got a job in the data entry/research division, based on false credentials supplied by a contact at UNIT. Her co-workers seemed nice enough and when she realised that a few of them knitted at lunch, she brought out the baby blanket she had started at Jo's and asked for help. Sarah understood the general idea now, but her stitches always seemed to be too loose or too tight or slipping off the needles. It had turned out to be a brilliant bonding strategy and they had passed on a surprising amount of information during gossip sessions over lunch and their knitting.

With their help, she had made progress, both on her investigation and on the blanket which took up most of the space in the backpack she was carrying now. She considered discarding it, but it wasn't heavy, and wouldn't impede her movement.

Of course, the moment he showed up, everything started happening at a breakneck pace. Sarah froze for a second when she saw the Cyberman, then headed for the alien tech room. She'd seen a few weapons there with enough fire power to take them out. From what she gathered as she moved through the corridors, these were a new breed from an alternate universe, probably the ones he had mentioned in his note that were immune to gold.

By the time she reached the tech room, everything was in chaos and it was easy to sneak in and grab a blaster and a spare power pack she'd noticed earlier among the unidentified alien artefacts. She hid in an alcove as she checked over the blaster - there had been a time when this was second nature to her - and slipped the spare charge into the backpack. For once she was grateful for her wartime experiences, if nothing else, they would keep her and her baby alive.

After that she stopped thinking and let her instincts take over. She did her best to herd the others out of the building, though from what she heard, the streets weren't any safer. She wasn't planning on going anywhere - at least there were weapons here, if this one failed her.

The worst moment was realising that there were Daleks in the building, as well. The Doctor had told her that some had survived, but she wasn't prepared for the chill in her stomach when she heard their cold, metallic voices.

Five minutes...for five minutes there were Daleks above the streets of London, and then they were pulled back, they and the Cybermen both, as though by a giant magnet. Sarah had no idea what the Doctor had done, but she knew he had to be behind it. She found herself racing up the stairs, following them to the executive level to see if there was anything she could do to help. She wondered how Sydney Bristow had managed it. That was telly of course, and this was real life and she was at least twice the other woman's age.

She paused at the top of the stairs to catch her breath and heard the Doctor's cry of "Rose". She ran, cursing her slowness, but by the time she reached the room he was standing there, alone, face pressed against the wall, tears streaming down his face.

She hesitated, torn between the desire to comfort him and the fear of interfering. Whatever had happened to Rose, he didn't need Sarah showing up, six months pregnant and another reason for guilt. He had enough of those - she knew that better than anybody.

Sarah quietly turned and left. As much as she needed to talk to him, it could wait. It had to wait.

She walked tiredly down the stairs, too drained to feel much of anything, except relief that she hadn't come face to face with a Dalek. It wasn't until she was halfway down, that Sarah realised she had lost her blonde wig during the fight or her race up the stairs.

Fearing that she would be recognised by one of the few remaining staff members, she started considering her options There was no way she'd make it to one of the exits without being seen, but the staircase would bring her near the alien tech department, where she had seen the TARDIS earlier. As much as she hadn't wanted to intrude on the Doctor's grief, it seemed the safest option for both her and her baby. If she could make it there, well, she still had her key on her keyring. She could only hope he hadn't changed the lock. She could hide there until things calmed down and she could slip away. Sarah suspected he'd be occupied for a while.

The carnage was overwhelming. She hadn't been aware of the extent of the casualties. She'd seen worse during her war years, but still...she forced herself to continue on. There was nothing more she could do for them; she had to keep moving. There were enough people still wandering the halls that she didn't want to risk a change in plans. The clutter of the tech room would give her enough cover to get to the TARDIS without being seen.

Less than ten minutes later she reached it unseen by the remaining Torchwood staff. To her relief, her key still worked and she let herself in, carefully closing the door behind her. She thought about heading to the galley for a cup of tea, but now that she was safe, her exertions caught up with her and she sank to the floor of the TARDIS in exhaustion, intending to rest for just a moment first.

Instead, she fell into a doze, only to be woken by a worried voice calling, "Sarah, Sarah." She could hear the familiar sounds of the TARDIS dematerializing and tried to focus her eyes on the Doctor, but too many nights of troubled sleep had finally caught up with her.

She forced herself awake enough to reassure him, "Doctor, I'm okay, just tired." Sarah could hear the blurriness in her voice. She was vaguely aware that he was scanning her body with his sonic screwdriver. When he gathered her in his arms, she snuggled against his chest. For the first time in ages, she didn't feel alone.

"Let's get you to bed," the Doctor said softly.

"Bed is good," was about all she could manage. She dozed, stirring as he undressed her, not minding much - it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. She felt his hand linger on her swollen belly, but she wasn't awake enough to gauge his reaction.

Soon he was tucking her between cool sheets, and she nestled down, absently noticing that the pillow smelled of him. A few moments later he slipped into bed beside her and gathered her in his arms murmuring, "It's okay, Sarah. You're safe now," in her ear as he settled down beside her. He stroked her hair gently, and as she allowed her sleepiness to overcome her she felt his other hand slide protectively to her stomach.

When she woke, he was gone, but that didn't surprise her. She had shared his bed for long enough to know that he only needed about a half an hour of sleep a night. Sarah looked around the room, confirming what she'd been vaguely aware of before; this was his bedroom. It changed as his personality did, but she had always been able to tell.

She knew that carrying her to his bed had been as much habit as anything else. Sarah had a history of letting herself get to the point of exhaustion because she didn't want to miss anything. She'd force herself to stay awake as long as he did until her body took over and she crashed and burned. He'd given her a room on her second trip with him, but she had moved into his when they became lovers and only rarely used her own.

She crossed the room, absently glancing at book titles and fiddling with some of the gadgets he had left lying around. She wasn't surprised to find maternity clothes hanging beside his in the wardrobe. The TARDIS always knew. Sarah took a quick shower and dressed, smiling when the baby moved restlessly. Then she gathered up her courage and went off to find the Doctor.

He was in the console room, lying on his back under the console.

"I see some things never change, Doctor."

He sat up with a start, nearly knocking his head against the console. "Awake are you?"

Sarah smiled at him. "I won't even ask how long I slept. I haven't been sleeping well," she added by way of explanation.

The Doctor bounced to his feet. "How about some tea?" His gaze drifted down. "And we should talk."

"Sounds good." She followed him to the galley.

Once they arrived he insisted she sit down, while he made tea.

"I'm not an invalid, Doctor."

"You just slept for over twenty-four hours, Sarah. I'd rather you rested as much as possible." He grinned at her suddenly. "And for once you can't argue. That's my child, you're carrying. I have a right to be concerned about you. Our baby," he repeated as he sat down across from her. "So what were you doing in Torchwood anyway? As if I need to ask."

"The usual. Investigating. I promised several people I'd get out quickly if it turned dangerous, but I didn't expect everything to go to hell so abruptly. And when it did I grabbed a weapon from alien tech and started fighting. From what I'd heard, I didn't think I'd be any safer out on the streets." She paused. "I feel like an idiot now, and I'm sure I'll hear about it from other people so don't start lecturing me. If I'd realised it would be quite so dangerous...I was just curious about the organisation behind the ghost shift."

He gathered both her hands in his. "You're probably right about being safest in Torchwood, near the weapons, but, Sarah, while I understand your impulse to find out what's really going on, I've got a strong inclination to lock you up somewhere safe until the baby is born."

"Nowhere's safe, Doctor," Sarah said sadly, "You know that as well as I do." She started to say more, but was interrupted by the whistle of the kettle. She fell silent and watched as he bustled around making the tea, wondering how to broach the subject of Rose.

In the end, she didn't need to, because when he returned to the table with two cups and a plate of biscuits, the Doctor told her what had happened. It took a while, and his pain at losing Rose was evident. By the time he finished, she was gripping his hand. "The Pete from the alternate universe managed to get back and catch her before she fell into the void. She's safe with her family and Mickey, but I'll never be able to see her again unless I do something really stupid."

"I'm sorry." It felt horribly inadequate.

He attempted a smile, but it faltered. "Sarah," he finally said awkwardly.

She broke in before he could say more. "I know I've got lousy timing here. The last thing I ever wanted..." she stopped, hesitating, "We were a long time ago - it feels like a whole other life for me and it was one for you - and here I am showing up with the worst timing ever and...I lost my wig and I couldn't get to the exit without being seen and the TARDIS seemed like a safe place to hide. I thought I'd be gone before you got back, but I fell asleep instead."

"Right, let's talk about that. Were you planning on telling me at all? I got your message that you didn't mind me dropping in for dinner. Would it have hurt you to say something about this at the time?" He was shouting now. "Sarah, you're six months pregnant with my child."

"What was I supposed to do, Doctor? Call your _girlfriend_?" Sarah was yelling and crying and hating every word that came out of her mouth. "Or maybe I should have just told her mother - 'You know that bloke who your daughter's travelling with - let him know he's going to be a daddy.' Do you think I planned this? This was supposed to be me getting on with my life, getting over you." She was interrupted by him getting up and pulling her abruptly into his arms. Sarah let out a shaky sigh and sobbed incoherently into his chest.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said in a quieter tone. "I just...I thought I saw you earlier today and then it turned out to be a pregnant blond...except it was you." He tipped her chin so he could look into her eyes. "When I think of what might have happened to you, to our child." Daleks and Cybermen.

Sarah had no doubts she knew which of those was more important to him. She tried to damp down the sudden fear that he would take the baby away from her after it was born. Humans might be his favourite species, but did he really want one raising his child? She didn't say anything, though. She'd always known caring about him the way she did was ultimately futile.

He saw the look on her face and suddenly sat down and pulled her into his lap, still cradling her. "My Sarah Jane. Don't you dare."

"Don't I dare what?"

"You're such a little thing, I had forgotten." He looked down at her and smiled before kissing the top of her head.

"Well, you're always so tall. And stop trying to distract me." Sarah tried not to relax into his embrace, tried not to fall again, but he was holding her and stroking her hair, and it was easy to close her eyes to the truth and forget how this would end. How it always ended, with him walking away without looking back and her trying desperately to pick up the pieces of her life.

Instead he said, "We keep playing out this scene, Sarah. You and me. We go along for a little while pretending we can make it work and then we fall apart again and I'm not sure why. And now we have our daughter to think of. I don't know what happens next. But you're still my best friend."

"And I love you," Sarah said softly.

"Sarah."

"What? Why should I always conform to your psychological hard wiring? Just because your species thinks sex is something you do with your best friend on a rainy Saturday when there's nothing good on the telly...."

The Doctor burst out laughing. "Fair enough. Although you must admit I have a bit more interest than that." He smirked at her, before continuing, "I suppose I avoid the phrase because it has such loaded connotations, and I never wanted to mislead you. At least humans have a concept of friends with benefits. I never knew it mattered so much to you."

"It didn't, when I was younger. My jealous behaviour at Deffrey Vale was as much a surprise to me as it was to you." She pulled free of his embrace and stood up.

"And I didn't help matters by showing up at your hotel room." He stood too, heading towards the console room.

Sarah followed him. "I want to say that was irrelevant, but I honestly don't know. I wasn't surprised when you showed up. But that's the fatal flaw in our relationship, isn't it? Disparate biological imperatives. It's perfectly natural for you to pick up right where you left off even though hundreds of years have passed and it's equally natural for me to be feeling nesting impulses right now. Although why they have to take the form of pestering the baby's father instead of oohing and aahing over cute widdle baby accoutrements, I don't know."

"I can't see you cooing over cute widdle anything, Sarah." He bent down and kissed her as the TARDIS landed. "And I'm not planning on disappearing out of your life completely." He picked up her backpack, which had been sitting in a corner. "I've reprogrammed your mobile, the way I did Rose's. Why didn't I know you knitted? You could have made me a scarf, back when I wore scarves."

Sarah resisted the urge to hit him. He had to have noticed her incompetence. "I just learned and I'm not very good at it."

"So? I do have a time machine. Ow." He rubbed the shoulder where she had punched him, glared at her and then turned on the view screen. "I hope that's your flat. You didn't leave a car at Torchwood, did you?"

"It is. And no. I had rented a room closer to Torchwood as part of my cover, and took public transport. Thanks for the lift home." She smiled at him and left, expecting the TARDIS to dematerialise soon after. Instead he followed her into the flat.

He wandered around the room, fiddling with things. "Me, me, me and me." The photos on the mantle piece. "I'm noticing a pattern here."

"I'd been going through some boxes and found those. Trying to clear out the spare room. I think it's too small for the baby, though, so I'm considering other options."

"A house? Sarah, if you need money, for a mortgage or for anything..." He dug around in his jacket before finding a bank card in one of the inner pockets. He handed it to her. "I was well paid during my time with UNIT and I never spent much of it. The access code is on the post-it note on the back. Use it, as much as you need."

Sarah smiled at him. "I was considering that my emergency fund. If I hadn't seen you, I'd have arranged more illicit access. The sort of work I've built my reputation on isn't really appropriate in my condition, as I proved today."

"Thief. First sonic screwdrivers, next embezzling money from my bank account. Where will it all end?" the Doctor asked whimsically. "I'm glad to know you thought of it. I was afraid you'd go all proud and argue that you could do it alone. Sarah, I'll be around and I want to know everything." He walked over and pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling the baby kick. "She's strong."

"Hyperactive. Like her daddy." Sarah braced herself for his departure. He was so much larger than life, it was easy to believe in his faith in her when he was here. Once he had gone, she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold on to that feeling.

The Doctor hugged her tightly, kissed her on the nose and then wandered back into the TARDIS. He turned to grin at her one more time. "My Sarah Jane."

"Always. Now off with you. I'm sure there's a universe that needs saving somewhere." She'd had her good-bye and it hadn't stuck. She didn't want to hear it now. This time she needed to know he would come back

Sarah watched as the TARDIS disappeared, then turned on the telly to check the date and time, and was relieved to find the news reporters talking about the incident at Canary Wharf that afternoon. She'd slept through a whole day, but it hadn't been real time. A day wouldn't be noticed, it was the years (decades?) that worried her. She had lost track of her biological age a long time ago, but she suspected the maths didn't add up to her apparent age, even considering the odd flow of time on the TARDIS.

She went into the kitchen to sort out the post that had come in her absence and notify her friends that she was okay. Anything else could wait until tomorrow. Tonight she had an appointment with a bubble bath and a Battlestar Galactica marathon. Perhaps the fictional robot invaders would drive the real ones out of her brain so that she could sleep tonight.


	11. Serendipity

"Nat, it's Sarah."

"Oh, god. Where are you? Are you alright? We've been so worried."

"I'm fine. I got out of there safely. Not even a scratch."

"You mean to say you were there? Sarah, you said this would be safe."

"I wasn't expecting it to blow up in my face like this, Nat. Don't worry, this is the last time I'll try something like this." Sarah regretted the lie, but the events of the day meant a quick trip to the Cardiff branch. And that would truly be safe. At most, she'd stay one night, she just needed to get a handle on Jack Harkness. She wished she'd remembered to ask the Doctor about him earlier.

"You promise."

"Yes, Nat, I promise." Liar.

"I've got a possible new date for the decorating party - June 21st. Are you free?"

Sarah winced, remembering. That was the date of the hen party that Rose had planned to attend. Now she was trapped in that parallel universe. Not that it was relevant to the question. "I was going to talk to you about that. Once I got the spare room cleared out I realised it was too small. I'm going to start looking for a house tomorrow."

"I thought you were worried about money, Sarah. Are you sure you can afford it?"

"This is why I was worried about money. I knew that sooner or later I'd want a house and that there would be other expenses. Schooling for one. I never meant to give you the impression I was broke. Besides, I've finally managed to track down her father." Sarah started idly going through the mail which had piled up in her absence and found nothing very interesting.

"_Her_ father?" Nat repeated, pointedly.

Sarah laughed. "Yes, it's a girl, just like yours. You finally pinned me down. They'll probably hate each other."

"Or marry each other. You never know these days. Anyway, I interrupted, sorry. You changed the subject from money to her father, and I'm assuming that is not a non sequitor."

"No, he's given me access to a bank account here in England that he only uses in emergencies. Enough that even with mortgage expenses, aside from some articles for various scientific magazines, I can stop working, at least until the baby is born. After that, we'll see. He and I have a lot of things to sort out."

"Just a sec, Sarah. Josh just walked in."

Sarah opened the newspaper and started looking at house listings to see what she could afford. She could hear Nat filling Josh in on what she had said, then Josh came on the line, "Would you be interested in the gatekeeper's cottage on our property? It's a nice area, almost country."

"And you'd be able to keep an eye on me. How much do you want for it? And don't say nothing. Or what are you willing to spend?"

To her surprise, Josh didn't argue, but named a figure. Sarah suspected he'd discounted it as much as he thought he could get away with.

"I'd like to see it first, but that sounds reasonable." Slight emphasis on the last word.

"Sarah, you're too independent for me to even try. Nat says you're letting the baby's father help you out."

"Yes. That's differ-oof. Sorry, violent baby." Sarah stroked her stomach hoping it would calm the baby.

"Nat has the same problem. The point I was trying to make is that as long as you're not trying to do this completely alone, I'll respect your decisions."

"And if I become too obstinate, you'll start going behind my back and paying my bills or something."

"Precisely. If you're in the gatehouse, we'll give you all the privacy you need, but you won't be able to isolate yourself."

"Got it. I can live with that. Can I come round tomorrow to see the place? And if I take it, we do this properly, legally binding contract, mortgage and all. Mortgage from a bank, not from you. And no pulling tricks with the interest rate." Sarah hoped she had covered everything. If she'd left a loophole, she knew he'd try to take advantage of it, no matter what he said.

"Whatever you say. Why don't you come for lunch? Noonish."

"Sounds good. See you then."

She made another, shorter call to Liz, to reassure her that she was alright, and to bring her up-to-date. After checking on K-9, she settled down on the sofa, wrapping herself in her quilt. She knew she was too wound up to sleep tonight - and sleeping for twenty-four hours on the TARDIS had left her wide awake.

Before Nat had called, she had been planning a Battlestar Galactica marathon. She'd been watching it obsessively, alternating between the relief at losing herself in a fantasy war and the feeling that sometimes it hit a little bit too close to home. She hesitated, then picked up the one box she hadn't sorted through and brought it over to the sofa.

Sarah stared at the box, labelled "Brighton" trying to will herself to open it. She felt foolish. After all the real problem wasn't that there would be something in it that would remind her, but that there would be nothing. Maybe that was what she was afraid of. The lacuna. The missing piece of her past that should never have happened, that as far as the rest of the world was concerned didn't happen. The memories that were supposed to have been wiped away, but weren't.

She had to get it over with. She didn't want her child growing up under this shadow. With that thought, she quickly sliced through the tape, before she lost her nerve. Sarah had packed this box the day after she returned from Brighton. A fortnight later, when her memories hadn't faded as she'd been told they would, she had taken the position of war correspondent and flown out to the Middle East, trying to distract herself from her worry, her fears and her pain.

The box contained mostly clothing from her trip to Brighton. Nothing to remind her; nothing to prove that it had been real. Sarah absent-mindedly started going through the pockets before she folded the clothes to pass on to charity. She found a handful of change, a few receipts, and a notepad and pencil, before she found what looked like a marble in the pocket of a rather battered leather jacket. She froze realising that she had brought something back after all.

"K-9, can you read this?"

He rolled up to her. "Affirmative, mistress."

A slot slid open and she inserted the sphere inside, then she plugged an external hard drive into his usb port. "Transfer over as much as you can, convert to the optimal Earth standard formats." Why was she doing this? Weren't these the memories she was trying to escape from? Maybe it was vindication she had been looking for, proof that it had really happened and that she had lived through it.

"Done, mistress."

"I thought there would be more on there."

"Negative, mistress. Photographs and some text files. Would you like me to translate them, mistress?"

"Can you create a font usable by my laptop, so that I can read them in the original?"

"Affirmative, mistress."

"Do that then." Her journal. She'd been in the habit of updating it whenever she had a few minutes. She must have shoved the data sphere in her pocket and forgot about it. If time had reset itself as it was supposed to, the sphere should have disappeared. She'd always thought that it was just her - that the universe had healed, and that her memories were just an echo.

K-9 signalled he was finished, and she unplugged the hard drive and plugged it into her laptop. Tonight, of all nights, she didn't want to do this. Tonight, of all nights, she had to.

It was surreal, opening the folder of pictures and suddenly realising that technology had caught up with her in some ways. Digital photography, portable computers, streaming and downloadable video. She had had access to similar gadgets eighteen years ago. Admittedly there was fifty times as much storage space on the datasphere as on her laptop's hard drive or the external one she was using now, and the rest of her current selection of hardware was still primitive in some ways, but it was much closer than she would ever have expected back then. And it was getting closer.

The pictures were in multiple folders by date and place. K-9 had rewritten all of the file dates so that they didn't confuse the operating system, but they were listed in the folder names and in the meta information so she had some context. She opened the first folder - the one with the pictures from Brighton - the only ones that she had taken with a film rather than digital camera. At the time it had taken the Doctor a few days to figure out how to convert them to computer files, now she could just take them down to the shop on the corner or even scan them herself.

She had tried living near Brighton for a while, an attempt to replace the memories with better ones. Despite the fact that their time in Brighton had been the most pleasant part of that experience, and that the events that caused her nightmares hadn't happened until after they had left, it hadn't worked. And it hadn't helped that, at the time, she had still thought he had died. She would always associate the city with everything that had happened, and after she had returned from Texas, had sold the house and moved back to London.

Sarah set the photos to display in a slide show. They looked like they were lovers on holiday. Admittedly he wasn't dressed for a summer day in Brighton, but she'd never known him to wear less than two or three layers, even on the warmest days. There had been Sea Devils, Sarah thought. Something she had forgotten. She supposed it was less relevant than what had happened after. There were no pictures of the Sea Devils in the folder - no time to snap pictures when you're trying to save the world.

In a way it had been like Deffrey Vale, their individual investigations had led them to the same place and time. He'd been travelling alone after his previous companion had left. After they'd saved the day, he'd grinned at her - that grin that stayed the same, no matter what face he wore - and pointed out that they had never made it to Florana. She'd resisted, but eventually agreed. She'd been thirty-four, had no close ties that would be broken if she left, and she'd always been a sucker for that smile.

They had never made it to Florana on that trip either. The slide show ended and she closed down the folder and then the computer. She'd look at the other folders, but not tonight, she promised herself. When she returned from Cardiff, she'd stop trying to block the memories and start trying to move past them. Tonight, she'd focus on the Cylons and threats that could be ended by turning off the telly.


	12. Road Trip

Her experiences at Torchwood's London branch had only made Sarah more curious about Jack Harkness and the organisation. She had ignored the smaller, hand-picked Cardiff branch, on the assumption that it would be more difficult to infiltrate than the Canary Wharf site. Unfortunately, she hadn't got far in her research before the whole thing had blown up in her face. She knew there was also a Glasgow branch, but her main interest at the moment was Jack Harkness, especially since she had agreed to help Jo with her search for the Doctor's other companions.

Although she had been curious about him long before she had discovered that he had travelled with the Doctor. The man had apparently been head of the Cardiff location since 1961, but hadn't aged a day. While Sarah knew people tended to disbelieve her quoted age of fifty-two (she had lost track a long time ago of how many years she had travelled with the Doctor, but she knew she was older than that), Jack's preservation was even more extreme.

Later, she had found a CCTV feed and had seen Jack exiting the TARDIS with the Doctor's Ninth incarnation and Rose Tyler. Aside from confirming that it had been the Tenth Doctor that she had seen at the school (and why had he counted from when he left her off in Aberdeen, when they had seen each other since then?), the discovery that Jack had travelled with the Doctor had intrigued her further.

She'd been too distracted when she'd seen the Doctor the month before and when she'd talked to him during his now weekly calls to ask him about the other man. Getting him to talk sense was difficult at the best of times, she could tell he was still brooding about Rose and generally his calls were his way of hovering virtually. When he'd heard that she had bought Josh's gatehouse, he promised to help her move into the new place, which Sarah interpreted to mean that she wasn't going to be allowed to lift a finger.

Once she reached Cardiff, she'd be meeting Jack for lunch. She wished she'd been able to ask Josh to come along as backup, but Nat was keeping him on a short leash these days, and she and Nat still weren't getting along. It would also have required her to admit that this wasn't just a "weekend in Cardiff, just because" and after the disaster that her last investigation had become, Sarah wasn't advertising what she really was after.

She'd arranged the meeting through UNIT, counting on the fiasco to get Torchwood to take the bait - the offer of a "positive" look at their organisation from someone who had a history of keeping secrets (UNIT's). It wasn't a stretch that someone with her reputation (good and bad) would have become curious following the Dalek/Cybermen invasion. And it had worked...she was able to arrange an interview with Jack Harkness, without any trouble.

The man turned out to be a charming flirt. Sarah smiled inwardly when she realised this - she'd never had any problem dealing with men...and women...like him. So she smiled at his team and admired the pterodactyl and wondered out loud why working for a place like this had never occurred to her.

Sarah noticed the hand in the jar and resisted the urge to wave it around saying 'Eldrad must live' in suitably eerie tones. No-one here would get the joke. She knew it must be the Doctor's, and she worried a bit about Torchwood getting their hands (no pun intended) on Time Lord DNA, until her obvious interest in it caught Jack's attention. If he was that protective of the hand, it implied that he was still looking out for the Doctor's interests. She found that very reassuring.

She mentioned her former connections to UNIT and reassured him that she could be convinced to keep her silence, if she understood why it was necessary. To her surprise, he'd been incredibly open with her about Torchwood Three, to the point where her instincts started tingling. No one would be that open with a stranger unless they had an ace up their sleeve.

Afterwards, he invited her out for a drink and she flirted as though she normally received such attentions from men young enough to be her son. She wasn't surprised when she noticed him slip something in her lemonade to make her forget, no doubt. She drank it down without comment, and shortly thereafter excused herself, using her pregnancy as an excuse to make an early night of it.

When she got back to her hotel room, she made a show of typing up her notes on her laptop, while doodling on her notebook as if she were thinking about what to say. By the time she was finished she had a neat none-too-explicit article and a page of notes in Gallifreyan, just in case the drug worked.

It didn't. And she wasn't surprised to discover that her file had vanished but her memories remained intact. This wasn't the first time she had retained memories of things she was supposed to forget. Not that it mattered. She had never intended to betray Torchwood's secrets, but she had acquired some of the information she had been seeking and some of the access codes that would enable her to find more.

She destroyed the page of Gallifreyan notes. It was a complicated language, but even if Jack didn't understand it, he would recognise the script from the labels on the TARDIS console.

The traces of tampering in her computer enabled her to find an entrance into Torchwood. "Idiots!" she couldn't help muttering, even though they wouldn't have expected her to remember enough to go looking or have the technological know how to exploit it. And she had upgraded her computer with a few anachronistic add-ons that she'd acquired or built over the years.

Sarah quickly located the information she was looking for and downloaded it onto the data sphere she had found in her leather jacket using a USB adaptor that K-9 had helped her design. If they could read that, (or even recognise it as a data storage unit) she would be very surprised.

She unplugged her computer after carefully erasing the traces of her presence from Torchwood's computers, then left her hotel room, intending to stay the rest of the weekend as she had planned and make a show out of looking for but not finding any information about Torchwood, before heading back to London. As usual, things didn't work out quite as smoothly as she had planned.

As Sarah wandered through Roald Dahl Plass, drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying the bright summer day, she noticed that she was being followed. A quick glance reassured her that it wasn't one of the Torchwood staff. She set herself to losing him. She didn't feel like dealing with the police this time.

As she walked round the fountain, her mobile rang.

"It's Josh. Where are you?"

"Cardiff."

"I mean specifically."

"Roald Dahl Plass. What's going on, Josh? Crimson cultists?" Sarah took a quick turn down a side street, splitting her attention between the mobile and her tail.

"Yeah. Somehow they found out you were going to be in Cardiff. I'll be there in half an hour. You're in no shape to be fighting them yourself."

"And so my life as Sydney Bristow continues." Sarah sighed. "Call me when you get here. I'm on the move trying to lose a tail."

"Gotcha. Try to stay alive until I get there."

"I always do." Sarah closed her mobile, debated, and then headed for the car park. Perhaps she'd take a nice drive in the country instead.

She managed to lose the cultist in the car park, and before long she was driving idly up the M4 when something caught her eye. She'd called Josh and let him know that she would meet him at a restaurant outside of Cardiff and she convinced herself that she had imagined whatever-it-was, because if she wasn't there when he arrived he'd worry. That worked until she exited the motorway and noticed the black 4x4 right behind her, neatly marked in several places 'Torchwood'. It was at this point that Sarah decided that she was not having a good day.

Sarah resisted the urge to wave as they sped past her, or to follow. Meeting Josh was her first priority and theoretically they were trained professionals. She pulled into the car park of the restaurant, and parked in the first available space. She didn't see Josh's car, so she sat down on a bench outside the restaurant to wait.

Less than five minutes later, Josh drove in and parked beside her car. Sarah was walking over to meet him when she noticed the black 4x4 in the corner of the car park and heard Jack shouting orders. Before she realised what she was doing, she tackled Josh and threw him to the ground. "Stay down." Moments later the restaurant exploded.

"Sarah, what's going on?"

"I don't know, but there's a Torchwood vehicle in the corner of the car park, which given what I've learnt about them, implies that things are about to go from bad to worse." Sarah tried to gather her thoughts. Fight or flight. Head for the Torchwood group and try to fight, knowing that she'd be slower and more awkward than normal or make a run for it in either her car or Josh's.

Josh was cursing. Sarah followed his gaze to discover that he had a flat tyre. A quick glance at her own car revealed the same problem. Debris from the explosion, she guessed. "Josh, do you have a gun? Any weapons?"

He already had one in his hand. "There's another in the car. So, Torchwood are bad guys." He opened the door cautiously, and pulled it out of the bag on the back seat.

Sarah took it from him, ignoring his startled look as she handled it easily. "No, in this case I'd suspect they're the good guys. These may not be useful, but they're better than nothing. Now stay low, keep quiet, and follow my lead. And don't look at me like that. I told you I'd used guns before."

Josh refrained from commenting.

They moved slowly across the car park, using the cars as cover. Sarah angled towards the trees off to the side, where she'd have a better view of what was going on and listening to Jack's shouted commands. The Torchwood team wouldn't be happy to see them, but they didn't really have a choice. The other group would have weapons and neither she nor Josh would be totally useless in the situation.

As they reached the end of the car park, Sarah noticed Jack's team aiming for the same grove of trees. She caught Josh as he moved to signal them. "We don't know what we're dealing with here. Let's wait until we're closer."

It didn't take long. Five minutes later, they were right beside Jack's team kneeling in the foliage. Sarah couldn't resist giving Jack a cheeky grin. "This has been a really bad day. Tell me this is a false alarm." No pretence. There was no time for that.

Jack frowned at her. "About as far from a false alarm as we can get. Half a dozen Daleks. We got three of them in the explosion, but there are three more. You should just get into your car and drive away."

"Flat tyres. All of the cars except yours, and I didn't think you'd appreciate me hotwiring it," Sarah said crisply. "You're stuck with us, I'm afraid. The good news is that I've faced Daleks before." She started fishing through her pockets for her mobile, before realising she had left it in the car. She hoped they were right about the numbers. This didn't even come close to being the worst day of her life, but it was definitely bad. She handed the gun back to Josh without looking, her eyes were already scanning the hills. "I don't suppose you've got an extra weapon, Jack?"


	13. War Zone

"Oh, lovely, Daleks to the right, cultists to the left. I knew I shouldn't have got out of bed today." Sarah spoke softly despite her annoyance. The four of them had found cover behind a hedge.

Tosh stared at her, "Okay, I know the Daleks; we've got files on them from the Canary Wharf fiasco, but what's this about cultists?"

"I'm not sure the Daleks are ever pleased about anything," Jack said, staring at her thoughtfully.

Sarah sighed and looked at Jack and Toshiko. "Welcome to my doomsday cult. I've tried asking them nicely to stop trying to kill me but it hasn't worked and running for your life while pregnant isn't fun, despite Sydney Bristow's attempts to make it fashionable."

Jack snorted at that. "You are much sexier than Sydney Bristow."

"Right, Jack." The man seemed to flirt as naturally as breathing, so Sarah didn't take it too seriously. "So anyway, the cult is divided into two chapters: the Crimson, who believe that my emergence as Herald signals an alien invasion fleet come to wipe out the earth. They want to kill me to stop it, and barring that kill everyone on Earth to protect them from the alien menace."

She paused and smiled at Jack, "Don't ask me which alien invasion - from where I'm standing they're ten a penny, but we're talking about civilians here. Watch it Jack." She reached for the Faren blaster in his hands.

"I was just trying to get it working. I suppose you think you can do better," Jack challenged her.

"Well, I won't blow us all to smithereens, if that's what you're suggesting."

She pulled a pocket knife and a cold solder tool out of her pocket and set to work, ignoring Josh's shocked look, and continued, "And of course there are those alien fleets who might be happy to have me dead before they invaded. I've made more than a few enemies in my time."

"It's the company you keep," Jack said dryly. "You do know what you're doing, don't you? The power supply on those things is so volatile, one wrong move and you'll blow up a third of Cardiff."

Sarah smiled again, oh so sweetly, as she lifted the cover off the power source, "Sometimes the desired result is worth the risk. As for the other, my past has been coming back to haunt me with alarming regularity over the last few years. To continue, on the other side we have the White Chapter, who think I'm the herald of benevolent aliens who will give humans knowledge that will be the start of a new golden age." She couldn't help rolling her eyes at Jack.

"Josh here is the Keeper of the White Chapter." She turned back to Jack. "He's also about to find out just how much of a hypocrite I really am."

"Sarah," Josh protested. "You're the most honest person I've ever known."

"I find that incredibly disturbing. I'm about the least honest person I know, except for Jack over there. Incidentally, Jack, if any of this ends up in Torchwood's files, I will hunt you down and tear you into little pieces, and I trust that will forestall your partner too. Oh, and I might end up writing an exposé that will discredit Torchwood, and I'd really rather not do that - you guys are pretty good at what you do."

Jack grinned at her, "Don't worry, I've got my own secrets to keep." He stared at her thoughtfully, then turned to Tosh and said, "I wouldn't dismiss that first threat lightly either."

"Don't worry, Jack. I can tell when someone's serious about something like that. Remind me never to play poker with her."

"I will. Sarah, what are you doing? You've bypassed the field regulator. That won't just blow us up, that will destroy everything in a thirty mile radius."

"No it won't. Trust me. I've done this before. The next step is to narrow the focus on the beam which will concentrate all the energy in one spot, enough to kill a Dalek fifty metres away. Just try not to miss. On second thought let me do it." She aimed the blaster and accurately took out the Dalek with her first shot, watching it explode violently before turning back to the others.

"You've done this before..." Josh couldn't help blurting out. "But you hate guns."

"Yeah, I...oh it's complicated." Sarah didn't know how much Jack's team knew, and she wouldn't betray him. She generally trusted the Doctor as a good judge of character, and now that she had met Jack she was inclined to believe that he had his reasons for working for Torchwood. Rather than discuss the past she said, "Pass me the other one, Jack." She offered him the working blaster.

He traded with her, and then looked over the work she'd done. "Ingenious."

"I didn't come up with it," Sarah replied, her hands moving expertly over the weapon.

Jack passed the blaster to Tosh, then checked in with the rest of the team, establishing that they were in position. Once Sarah had finished her repairs, he gestured to the other three to move out, taking the other blaster back from Tosh. "Stay back," he said to Tosh and Josh, "Let us cover you. Regular guns aren't going to work on those things. And since Sarah's used the blasters before, I'm not going to take the time to train you."

"You're sure there are only two left?" Sarah couldn't help asking. "I'm not exactly in shape for running long distances."

Jack checked his wrist computer. "Unless they've found some way of cloaking themselves, yeah, I'm sure. You're certain you're up to this?"

"Needs must."

"Okay, they're both south-south east about 60 metres; you take the left one and I'll take the right."

To Sarah's surprise and relief, the plan worked, for once, and they managed to pick off both Daleks on their first shots.

"Nice shot," Jack said. He scanned the area again. Looks like we got them all. I'll send my team in for clean up and you and I can have a little chat."

"What's there to chat about? You tried to drug me to make me forget and it didn't work."

He smiled that bright, bright smile, "Care to explain how you managed that?"

Sarah pushed back her messy hair with her fingers before answering. "Too many people messing with my memories and my mind over the years. I seem to have developed a resistance." He didn't need to know the details. "Look, I never intended to write an exposé of Torchwood. I'll even send you a copy of the article to be vetted, if it helps."

"Fair enough." He started to say something else, but noticed that Tosh and Josh had almost reached them, so he just wrote down an email address. "Send it here. I'm having my team mend your tyres. Are you heading back to Cardiff?"

"Not if I can help it. Josh, can you collect my suitcases from the hotel? I think I've had enough of Wales for one day." Sarah suddenly felt old and tired. She wondered if not leaving the house for the rest of her pregnancy would prevent things like this from happening. The Doctor had wanted to lock her up somewhere safe for the duration, and she was beginning to regret she hadn't let him.

After she had arranged things with Josh, Sarah headed back to her flat, not caring how they had repaired the tyres. She couldn't help smiling at the thought of the packing that awaited her, after weeks of unpacking. At least she had less stuff to move, this time around. Even if sleep eluded her again tonight, she wanted to be home.


	14. A Nice Cup of Tea

Jack showed up at her flat without warning a week after her visit to Cardiff, and Sarah wondered if he'd found out who she was. She hoped not. It was bad enough having the Crimson Chapter on her tail; poking Torchwood with a big stick had been a bad idea all around.

"How's the baby?" He might have been concerned or just making small talk, it was hard to tell.

She smiled grimly. "Well enough. Sydney Bristow made it look easy, but it isn't."

"But you're much sexier than Sydney Bristow."

Sarah snorted. "Given that she's at least half my age, I doubt that, but thank you anyway."

Jack grinned at that and accepted her offer of tea, to Sarah's relief. Her living room was a mess now; half full boxes and assorted objects waiting to be sorted and packed. She was determined to be more organised this time, and to be unpacked before the baby arrived.

While the water was boiling, he looked over K-9. "Your dog isn't from around here."

"No, and you can't have him." Sarah couldn't help tensing. She knew he was trying to keep her off balance, but she had too much at stake here. She busied herself making the tea. "How do you take it?"

"Black is fine. You're from the Time Agency, aren't you?" He looked at her speculatively as he selected a biscuit.

"If I were, don't you think I'd have more sense than to be wandering around with anachronistic tech?" Why hadn't she just let him believe that? It would have simplified things. If she could have pulled it off. "I've just...been around a bit." She placed the tea in front of him and joined him at the table.

"Would this be in your UNIT days? I wondered what they needed a journalist for." Spilling little tidbits of information, trying to get her wondering what else he was aware of. God, the man was good.

But she was better; she had to be. "Spin control." Sarah said enigmatically.

"For their science department? You used to work with Doctor John Smith, the scientific advisor. Do you remember him?" Jack asked, almost idly. He took a sip of tea; the picture of nonchalance.

She still wasn't sure how much he knew and which of them was playing the other. "How could I forget him, he was rather eccentric. You know this is a bit one-sided. Mind if I play too?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Jack Harkness, who started Torchwood in 1961, yet doesn't look a day over 40." She sipped her own tea; two could play that game as well.

"How did you...?" Now he was off balance. Good.

"I'm a journalist, Jack. It's my job to put together the pieces no one else notices. Like the fact that your wrist computer is standard Time Agency issue." Calm, cool and collected, that was the key. All she needed to do was keep the upper hand here.

"And a reporter from the twentieth century coincidentally knows how to jury rig a Faren Blaster. Those things are rare as hell, and the power source is so volatile that you need a special kit to adjust them and a specialist to repair one. Care to tell me where you learned to do that?" His voice developed a wary edge.

"Not on your life. Tell me, Jack, does Torchwood know you used to travel with the Doctor?" Answer a question with a question. It was a useful technique which had served her well as a journalist. She took a biscuit as she waited for his answer.

Jack froze, and Sarah knew he'd realised that she'd distracted him from his original line of questioning. He'd been trying to figure out how much she knew about the Doctor not the other way around.

He recovered from his momentary panic and said, a little too smoothly, "So, you know the Doctor."

"You asked me about him less than five minutes ago." Sarah smiled, knowing she was on solid ground now. She couldn't afford to relax, though. "Yes, before you ask, I travelled with him, a long time before you did. And if this little conversation makes it into the Torchwood database, I will personally rip you into tiny shreds, is that clear?"

"I watched you fix a Faren Blaster with a Swiss army knife and a soldering iron, which proves that you are both insane and capable of doing just that. Trust me, I don't want this brought to Torchwood's attention any more than you do. How long have you known about Torchwood?" He was trying to take control of the conversation again, but Sarah had no intention of letting him.

"I came across the name during my UNIT days, dug up a little background info, just in case. I've been keeping an eye on you personally for a while, but I didn't start digging into Torchwood One until the ghost shift started. Up until recently I only knew about their interest in alien tech, not their other purpose. I'm not a threat, Jack. I just feel the need to protect what's mine. And to make sure my baby has a safe place to grow up." Sarah hoped she wasn't laying it on too thick. Unlike her friends, she suspected Jack would understand her priorities where the baby was concerned.

"And you'll understand that I need to do the same for my team. Sarah, I want to trust you in this, but if anything happens...." A threat for a threat.

Sarah smiled. "Understood. Jack, the only way you'll know if you can trust me is by my actions. I sent you the piece, and that's all I plan on writing on the subject, unless you give me a reason to. The reverse is also true. For now I have to assume you're being above board with me. If things change, if Torchwood screws up again like it did at Canary Wharf or if my life or the life of my child are threatened by something directly or indirectly related to Torchwood, I will retaliate."

Jack finished his cup of tea and stood, "Truce, then." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Believe me when I say it has been a pleasure dealing with you. You're a remarkable woman, Sarah Jane Smith."

"And you're an irrepressible flirt, Jack Harkness." She couldn't help smiling as she led him to the door and watched him leave.

Another possible catastrophe averted. She'd trust Jack that far and no further. She certainly wouldn't trust him with the identity of her baby's father. Having gone through some of the files she had downloaded from the Torchwood computers, she now knew its original purpose and that scared her as much as the Daleks or Cybermen. She could only imagine what they would do if they found out that she was carrying the Doctor's child.

Sarah returned to the living room and surveyed the disaster area, and cursed the impulse to move now rather than wait until the baby was born. Then she started the DVD player again and got to work.


	15. Paint By Numbers

It had taken five months but finally Sarah and Nat had agreed on a date to paint the nursery. Never mind that they were both eight and a half months pregnant now, and weren't likely to be much help in fixing up the baby's room. As far as Nat was concerned, Josh and Sarah's other friends would be expected to do all the work, while Sarah and Nat sat in state and directed things.

At least, Nat couldn't say that Sarah hadn't done anything to prepare for the baby. Besides moving in and unpacking, she had managed to finish the baby blanket - by the end she was confident enough in her own knitting abilities to decide to make a matching cap (she had resisted the urge to make a scarf), and had purchased and spent an entire night sticking up the glow in the dark stars.

To Sarah's surprise, Tegan had decided to fly in specifically for this. She had managed to work her way up into the top levels of the administrative division of the airline she had once worked for as a stewardess, and never needed to worry about the cost of airfare from Australia.

Jo had hinted that she might be bringing other companions, and Sarah wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. It was one thing to expect her friends to help her in this way, but most of the others would be strangers. She had thought about inviting Jack Harkness, but they weren't exactly friends and she didn't really want to encourage Torchwood's attention, now that she had read their original charter.

She had left a message for the Doctor, but he hadn't responded. He hadn't actually helped her move - she'd hired a moving company for that, but he'd come round that day and helped her direct the movers and unpack necessities. He had spent the entire time talking nonsense and avoiding any serious discussion about what would happen after the baby was born. To be fair, she had done the same.

Sarah kept returning to the same line of thought she'd had when she first told him - humans might be his favourite species, but there was still that line between them. She sometimes wondered if the reason he spent so much time with humans was that it meant he was always the smartest person in the room. She had never felt her limitations travelling with him, but this was a very different situation.

He wouldn't hurt her deliberately, she supposed, but if it came down to what he saw an obvious fact - that she wasn't intelligent enough to raise a child of his species - he'd expect her to accept it as truth. And while she had always tried to convince herself that it didn't matter that he was incapable of returning the love she felt for him, or that his feelings about her were no different than they were for any of his other companions, she had to admit that it did matter, especially after the way she had reacted to Rose's presence.

Josh and Nat arrived as she was laying down drop cloths in what would be the baby's room and she had Josh help her move the paint into the room.

"Think you have enough paint?" Nat asked surveying the variety of colours that Sarah had bought.

"One of my friends is an artist and offered to do a mural. I wasn't about to say no, though I did warn her that if it involved fluffy pastel animals, she would end up in excruciating pain. No offence intended."

"None taken," Nat said with a smile. "I know that's not your style."

She had invited Sarah over to see the room that she and Josh had designated as the nursery, ostensibly in the hope that that would get Sarah more interested in such things Sarah had bit her tongue and restrained herself to such comments as "It's so adorable." which it had been.

But as Sarah stood there, listening to Nat babble on about baby furniture, she had heard an edge of desperation in the other woman's voice and realised that the problem wasn't the baby, but Josh. Or more precisely Josh's tendency to ask 'how high' when Sarah said jump. Sarah hoped she could find some way to convince Nat that she wasn't a threat to her relationship with Josh. She would have thought being pregnant with another man's child would be enough, but she also knew how irrationally people behaved when they were in love.

Sarah led the others to the rickety lift installed by a previous owner and then into the room on the second floor which she'd chosen for the nursery. After the trip to Cardiff and that visit, she had decided not to move into the gatehouse, but had bought an old Victorian house nearby. As her relationship with Nat hit snag after snag, she couldn't help but think that living that close wasn't as good an idea as it had seemed at first.

Knowing what they'd be most interested in, she said, "I've been looking at furniture. I'll make a decision after I see what Tegan does with the mural and have it delivered next week." She was going to elaborate, but was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.

She went to answer it, leaving the other two to look around the room. Sarah opened the door to discover that the rest of her guests had arrived. Jo hugged her despite the large shopping bag she was carrying - she had offered to make curtains for the nursery and had ended up recovering the cushions from the window seat to match. When Jo released her she was instantly engulfed by Tegan in the other woman's usual exuberant manner.

Once Tegan was done hugging Sarah, Liz had stepped up with a bemused look on her face and said, "When in Rome..." and gave Sarah a quick hug.

That left only... "Turlough, what on Earth are you doing on Earth? I thought you hated it here."

"I've got my reasons." He smiled enigmatically and gestured at her stomach. "I'm not even going to ask. I thought you had more sense than that."

"I thought I did too. You look good." She linked her arm in his and drew him inside, leaving the others to follow after. "Are you going to help Tegan with the mural?" she wheedled.

"She's already got me to agree to that. We did some preliminary sketches that I think you'll like."

"Well, try not to resort to bloodshed."

Tegan's voice came from behind them, "Would we do that?"

"Yes." Sarah was most definite. They always reminded her of squabbling siblings.

As Sarah entered the room, Josh accosted her. "The stars are rather random. I'd have thought you'd want to be more accurate. We can take them down and do proper constellations if you want."

Before Sarah could react, Turlough looked up at the ceiling and said dryly, "There are other planets, with different constellations, you know." He turned to Sarah, "Did you manage that from memory?"

"God, no. I'd never have got the proportions right. I had K-9 project a star chart on the ceiling and used that as a guide." Sarah ignored Josh's bewildered look. She really didn't want to get into that now. She had been determined to get the stars up for just that reason.

"Oh, I like the effect," Liz said. "So you just sit down somewhere out of the way and tell us what to do."

"The window seat," Jo interrupted, pulling the cushions out of her bag and plopping them down where they belonged. "We don't want to hang up the curtains until after the paint's dry."

Sarah sat down in the window seat and Nat rolled her wheelchair beside her.

"So, oh ruler of all you survey, what did you have in mind?" Turlough asked.

"Mural on that wall. For the wall by the door I found this wonderful blackboard paint, that you can draw on with chalk."

"She won't be old enough to do that for a while, SJ," Josh said gently.

Sarah smiled. "It isn't for her, at least not yet. It's for me to write notes to myself on, like 'buy nappies'."

"Can I call you SJ also?"

"Shut up, Turlough."

He gave her an innocent look.

Sarah made a mental note not to mention her cult to Turlough until after Josh left. She suspected the latter wouldn't appreciate the former's sense of humour. She continued with her instructions, "The blue paint is for the rest of the room. Anyone who's feeling terribly artistic can help Tegan and Turlough with the mural, otherwise, pick a side of the room and start painting."

"Did you want to see our sketches?" Tegan asked.

"Surprise me."

The five of them got to work while Nat took out her knitting and Sarah started a sign she was making to hang on the door, in English and Gallifreyan. Five minutes later, Sarah was thankful for the drop cloths as Jo had managed to spill some of the blue paint. The conversation had turned to babies - at least that was a safe topic, Sarah thought, though if Turlough hadn't been contributing snarky comments, she would have zoned out.

By the time lunch arrived in the form of pizza, Josh and Turlough had discovered that they had attended the same boarding school and had bonded over their mutual hatred of St. Brendan's to everyone's relief. Turlough had been sniping at Josh since he arrived and Josh was quick to snap back. This discovery had led, of course, to a discussion of the Brigadier, and some suitably edited stories of Liz, Jo and Sarah's time at UNIT.

Mixing these two groups of friends had worried Sarah, but she now started to relax and enjoy the afternoon. Thankfully Tegan and Turlough had only two bouts of 'artistic differences' (one of which being who got to paint the TARDIS on the wall) and Jo had only spilt one other can of paint (and got some in her hair, though nobody knew how). When Sarah started to feel guilty about not helping and offered to make tea, cheerfully refusing all offers of help, everyone seemed to be working happily.

However when she got to the kitchen, she discovered that she was out of the hot chocolate she had offered Tegan and Nat, and after putting the water on to boil for the tea, headed back upstairs to ask what they wanted instead. Sarah never knew for certain what had caused the shift in the discussion, or why they had let it had spiral out of control when they knew she would be right back, but as she walked down the hallway, she could hear loud voices coming from the room.

"...nonsense about the Doctor. I wish she would tell us what really happened, but I don't want to push her. The last time I questioned her, she withdrew into herself and refused to seek medical attention. I'm worried about the baby." Liz. Sarah's stomach tightened and she resisted the urge to...to what? She didn't know what she could do.

"The whole thing's ridiculous. The Doctor doesn't do things like that. She's just made up this fantasy in her mind..." No wonder Jo had been so calm when Sarah had told her. Liz must have warned her to humour Sarah. "I don't suppose you have any idea who the real father might be."

"Josh, do you want to answer that?" Nat's voice sounded odd somehow.

"What are you talking about?"

Sarah was totally unprepared for Nat's response, though she had to admit it made a certain twisted sense. "Oh, God, Josh, don't do this. Your precious Herald. You think I don't know I'll never measure up to her in your eyes."

"You can't possibly be suggesting..." Sarah could hear the horror in Josh's voice. "Nat, it isn't like that. It's never been like that. And I don't want it to be like that. She's a friend, yes, but no more. That would wreck everything." At least he had the sense to see that. She hadn't, when she'd been in Josh's place and the Doctor had come into her life. "I love _you_. Sarah's just a friend who needs some support now. You have to believe me."

"I'm sorry, Josh. I had to ask." Nat's voice was shaky.

"Which doesn't answer the question of who the baby's father is." At least Tegan had the sense to change the subject.

"Sarah will be back soon, do we want to have this conversation now?" Thank heaven for Turlough. Sarah had been discomfited by the thought of walking into the room. "And stop hogging the grey paint, Tegan. You're not the only one doing spaceships."

"You haven't changed a bit, have you Turlough?" Tegan snapped back.

The spell broken, Sarah returned to the kitchen and mechanically finished making the tea. By the time she returned, the fight was in full swing. Aside from slight hints of tears on Nat's face, and the raging argument, all seemed to be as she had left it. She dodged a bit of paint that Tegan flicked in Turlough's direction.

"Children, behave," she said, practising her motherly voice, which only caused Jo to giggle, and didn't do anything to end the battle. "I don't want my baby's room looking like a three-year-old designed it, so stop throwing paint." That was more effective. "Tegan, Nat, I'm out of hot chocolate, I'm afraid. Can I offer you something else?"

"Tea will be fine," Tegan said, as she snagged the blue paint back from Turlough.

Nat smiled shakily at her and said the same.

Somehow she managed to get through the rest of the afternoon pretending she hadn't overheard the conversation. Nat, at least, seemed a little warmer towards her, and Turlough kept giving her speculative glances. She hoped she'd manage a quick chat with him later.

As it turned out, she had more than a few minutes. When the painting was done and everyone started to get ready to leave, he asked if he could crash on her couch for the night.

"Of course." She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice.

Tegan looked at him in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought you two knew each other that well."

Turlough smirked at her. "After we left you off at Heathrow, we ran into her again. We got along quite well, if you must know."

Tegan started to retort but was stopped by Liz and Jo, who almost dragged her out the door. This was unexpected, and Sarah wondered if they thought Turlough might be able to get her to open up as the other three had all tried and failed. She'd have to warn him to expect an interrogation.

Sarah shut the door with a relieved sigh. She had no intention of confronting her friends with what she had overheard, but that hadn't made it any less difficult to smile and pretend that nothing was wrong. She turned to Turlough and said, "I hope you're envisioning an evening filled with snarky commentary about everyone we know, because I could really use a laugh right now."

"Sounds like a plan to me." He smirked at her and followed her into the living room.


	16. Slumber Party

Once everyone had left, Sarah had ordered Chinese then led Turlough into the living room, where she collapsed on the sofa and closed her eyes.

"Tired?" He sprawled in an armchair.

"Yeah." She opened her eyes again. "Emotionally drained, more than anything. It's been a long eight months. I wanted to thank you for easing off Josh."

"Anyone who hates St. Brendan's is a friend of mine. And I'm going to shock you by apologising for picking that last fight with Tegan. You wouldn't have liked walking in on the discussion before that."

"I heard a good portion of it out in the hall. But no, walking in on that would have been awkward all round." She hesitated before meeting his eyes. "I may regret asking this but I didn't hear you venturing an opinion."

His lips twitched. "I don't think anyone other than the Doctor himself could convince them you two were lovers. Are lovers." Turlough arched an eyebrow at her, "You've seen him recently?"

"Tenth incarnation. There's a picture on the mantelpiece."

He stood up and walked over. "Should I place any significance on being the only person pictured here besides the two of you?"

"Luck of the draw. I didn't have a picture of just me and Five," Sarah said lightly.

Turlough picked up the picture of her with Ten and examined it closely. "Nice suit. How was he?"

"Sad, angry, tired. He told me everyone died."

"There were rumours...."

"The hazards of doing what needed to be done," Sarah said quickly. "But he's managing. One foot in front of the other and he had a new companion. A blonde. Not her natural colour and she apparently believes the more mascara the better. Still, he seemed to like her."

Turlough turned to smirk at her. "I've never known you to be catty, Sarah Jane."

"I guess it bothered me. He didn't even think to let me know he was alright. Okay, I was supposed to have forgotten what had happened when I returned to my own time, but he could have come round to check up on me. Instead I ran into him unexpectedly during an investigation, after years of believing he had died. New companion and all. I suppose the most disturbing thing was how I reacted. Petty and hysterical." It still bothered her, losing control of the situation like that.

"And the thing I've always liked best about you is that you're neither." Turlough walked back over to the sofa.

"And you're not normally compassionate and understanding," she couldn't help teasing. "What's got into you?"

He smiled lazily at her before sitting down again. "You're a friend, or at least I'd like to think so and I've grown up a bit. So tell me about what's-her-face. All the dirt."

"Shop girl. No ambition, it seemed, except to stay with him forever. Unfortunately, she was trapped in a parallel dimension while trying to deal with Daleks and Cybermen, right before he found out I was pregnant, which didn't help matters any."

"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't seen him since Xera. Up until Tegan mentioned you, I didn't even know you had made it back to Earth, before the war...ended." His voice faltered on the last word.

She didn't blame him. "Sometimes it feels like I haven't. Oh, I know it's been eighteen years for me, and I didn't really miss anything coming back a few minutes after I left. But that didn't stop me from feeling like I was rebuilding my life. And there are days when I'm just going through the motions and my head's elsewhere."

"When I last saw you, you were assuming that you would never come back to Earth. As much as I hate the place, it is your home, but your focus was on the problems at hand and beyond that, on building a life for yourself in a society that didn't think much of humans. The war changed everyone's priorities, and for you to make the mental shift to pretend it never happened must have been very hard. I remember how it felt being exiled to Earth thinking I'd never see my home again." The reason he hated Earth.

Sarah hadn't forgotten that. "And then you met the Doctor, and he made everything better, and finally got you home. These days, seeing him just makes things worse for me." Sarah closed her eyes again. "I thought knowing he was alive would allow me to move on and stop mourning, but it hasn't worked out that way." She stroked her belly absently. "Not that I'd give this up."

"No, I wouldn't expect you to, not after what happened. For what it's worth, I'm glad you survived the war." He lazed back in his chair, noting her exhaustion and added softly, "I thought we were going to be snarky and silly tonight. We don't need to talk about this now, unless you want to."

"I...not now. I'm trying to deal with the past, but it's painful, and I could really use some cheering up even more than I need catharsis." She forced some cheerfulness into her voice. "So let's talk about you...not only have your returned to a planet you've been vocal about loathing, you got roped into this nursery nonsense and I'm trying to figure out how."

"Not much of a story. Tying up some loose ends from my exile, and I suppose the end of the war made me nostalgic, so I rang up Tegan when I got here. I think she was shocked that I agreed to come along." He sounded bemused.

"And even more shocked when you decided to stay the night," Sarah teased. "The next thing you know they'll be gossiping about us."

"I forgot that she didn't know I'd seen you more than once after she stopped travelling with the Doctor. And I was curious, since the last time I saw you, you acted like returning here wasn't an option."

"Things changed. The fortunes of war and all that. He was trying to save me." The one thing he could save. "We spent close to a year on Trion, didn't we? I lost track. We were so many places and time never seemed to move properly in the TARDIS or on Gallifrey for that matter."

Turlough shrugged. "More than that, I think, but given the nature of the war we were fighting.... Sarah, we're getting maudlin again." He stood up with a surprising amount of energy, and headed to her DVD collection. "Don't you have some nice cheesy sci-fi that we can snark at?" He pulled out a box. "They remade Battlestar Galactica. Why?" he asked, sounding betrayed. "I will never understand humans." Despite the pain in his voice, he put in the first disk, and sat back down in the chair. "I hope it's less...embarrassing than the original."

"I've come to the conclusion that it's one of the weirder echoes of the Time War," Sarah said without thinking and having gone that far she felt she had to continue. "Brave fighting force facing a war of attrition against powerful robot enemies. No time distortion, but you can't have everything. On the other hand, it's more modern, grim and gritty than the original, with an actual special effects budget."

"Sounds like my kind of show." Turlough looked at the other two thoughtfully. "We don't have to watch it."

Sarah gave him a wry smile. "They didn't remake the robots to look like Daleks and to be honest, snarking at it would help immensely. So settle down, and enjoy the misery and angst suffered by other people." She settled back down on the sofa, just as the doorbell rang.

Turlough reached over and squeezed her hand. "You stay where you are. I'll take care of this."

"There's money in my purse and drinks in the fridge."

It didn't take long before they were digging into the Chinese food and started watching the miniseries.

Turlough, of course, had many sarcastic comments as they watched the first disk, and Sarah found herself laughing more than she had since she'd learned she was pregnant. She suspected he was going a bit overboard for her benefit, and she appreciated it.

After the show ended, Turlough asked plaintively, "If I can't call you SJ, can I call you Madam President?"

Sarah was tempted to throw a pillow at him, but relented when he suggested ice cream by way of apology. Then she threw it at him for snarking about stereotypically pregnant women.

When he finally settled down on the sofa for the night, and she made a note to herself that she really should get a bed for the spare bedroom, she was feeling better than she had in a long time. 'Manic depressive behaviour' Liz had described it as and Sarah knew she was right about that. As long as the depression didn't turn suicidal, she could handle it until after the baby was born. And then, if it weren't a symptom of her pregnancy, she could consider getting help. For now she'd just live with it. She'd got this far, she could stand a few more weeks.


	17. Wedding Bells

"Sarah, come over here and I'll help you with the zip," Nat said. "That dress looks lovely on you."

Sarah walked over and knelt so that Nat could reach. "Not much call for maternity dresses for matrons-of-honour. I'm just glad I found something we both liked. Of course if I had given birth last week, I would have had an even bigger problem." Not that it was likely. Sarah had cursed Gallifreyan genetics and resigned herself to at least another month of pregnancy. "Thanks. I never could have reached." With a bit of effort, and a hand from Nat, she managed to get up again.

After the explosion the day of the decorating party, things had mostly returned to normal between the two of them. Sarah owed Turlough for that. His complete and utter scorn at Nat's conjecture seemed to have convinced the other woman that she was being irrational, though Sarah wasn't sure things were completely fixed between them.

Nat picked up Lissa and cuddled her. "I keep expecting Liz to suggest inducing labour, though I'm glad she didn't do it before the wedding. Any particular reason she hasn't?"

"Some fear of complications," Sarah said vaguely, wondering how much longer she could fudge that this was a normal pregnancy. In a few weeks, it would be over ten months since she had told people she was pregnant and her maths would come into question. "She thinks it's safer to let the baby come when it's ready."

Nat looked at her thoughtfully, but before she could comment there was a knock at the door of the hotel room.

"If that's Josh, you can go away now." Nat called out.

"Not Josh. I was told I could find Sarah Jane Smith here."

Sarah stilled, then walked over to the door and opened it a crack. "You're alone?"

"Martha's visiting her family."

"That wasn't what I meant, but come in." She opened the door to let the Doctor in, checked the hall, then closed it carefully. "Josh has been trying to sneak in to see Nat but she's absolutely convinced it would be bad luck." She threw her arms around him and kissed him passionately, then murmured in his ear. "I know we've never been much for public displays, but play along with me and I'll explain later."

"Gotcha." He kissed her again, then pulled away so he could look at her. "You look brilliant. How's the baby doing?" he stroked her stomach, then bent down and said, "Restless are you? Don't you think it's time you gave your mum a break?"

"You're a fine one to talk," Sarah said dryly. "I'm forgetting my manners. Nat, this is the Doctor, Doctor, Nat Redfern. Soon to be Nat Townsend."

"I've heard so much about you," the Doctor said brightly. "I'd offer to shake hands, but you don't seem to have one to spare. Hullo, little one. May I?"

Nat smiled and handed him the baby. "This is Lissa."

"You make that look so easy." Sarah settled in one of the chairs. She'd be on her feet enough later on.

"I have done this before, you know." He jiggled the baby expertly. "You're very cute, but I'm sure Fred will be cuter."

"Oh, are we naming her Fred?" Sarah asked with mock exasperation.

"I've always been fond of the name. Don't you like it?" He widened his eyes and looked at her innocently.

Sarah sighed, then relented, "Okay, either Fredericka or Winifred. Not just Fred. I want her to have the option to change it later if she wants to."

The Doctor made a show of thinking for a minute before saying decisively, "Winifred. And I'll let you choose the middle name," he added, as though he were granting her a huge favour. The baby started to fret, and he handed her back to Nat, then wandered over to slip an arm around Sarah's shoulders. "I should probably go. You've got the wedding and all. This was just me checking up on you."

Sarah started to say something, but Nat beat her to it. "Sarah told us you might come. Please stay. We'd love to get to know you better."

"If you're sure I'm not in the way." He was looking at Nat, but he gathered Sarah's hand in his.

"Of course you won't be in the way." Sarah smiled at him adoringly, more for Nat's benefit than anything else.

There was quick rap on the door, and then Josh's mother entered. "Sarah, we need to go in a minute; Nat, let me take the baby."

"Thanks for the warning. Doctor, it's the church around the corner, why don't you go with Tina and I'll see you there." Sarah gripped his hand before releasing it.

"Sounds like a plan." The Doctor kissed Sarah gently and left with Tina and Lissa.

"He's younger than I expected." Nat's voice was neutral.

Sarah wondered what she was thinking. "He's older than he looks and we've known each other a very long time. Thank you for encouraging him to stay. I think he's a bit wary of intruding on what he thinks is my life." A wistfulness that wasn't entirely fake crept into Sarah's voice. "We've led separate lives for so long now, that I'm not sure if we remember how to be together."

"And the baby needs both of you." Nat said, as though there weren't plenty of babies raised by single mothers. "Maybe we'll have another wedding to celebrate soon."

"Oh, I can't see us getting married," honesty compelled Sarah to reply. "But you're right about the baby needing both of us. I just hope he sees it that way. Holding on to him is like trying to catch the wind. We'd best go so we can get this started promptly." She hoisted herself out of her chair and with a dark look down at her belly, headed to the chapel. "Nervous?"

"Horribly. I suppose after everything we've been through, it seems silly."

"I think it's natural. Not that I'd know first hand. But you're about to marry the man you love, who adores you, so relax." And assuming the Doctor sticks around, I'll be making gooey eyes at him to convince you that I have no interest in Josh.

As she walked down the aisle, Sarah could see that Josh was fidgety, so she gave him a quick smile of reassurance. When she got to the front of the church, she discovered somehow Tina had convinced the Doctor to sit in the front with her and couldn't help feeling relieved. She'd been afraid he would slip off for one reason or another. The wedding march started and she couldn't help thinking that, despite the red trainers, he didn't look out of place and had to suppress a smile at the thought of some of his previous outfits and a momentary worry that trouble would follow them as it always did.

Sarah regained her composure as she watched Nat come down the aisle. It wouldn't do to giggle at the bride. The ceremony was a blur to Sarah, as the baby decided it was time for a workout and chose to use her as a punching bag. Whenever she looked over at the Doctor, he grinned at her supportively.

Once the service was over, Nat and Josh made a beeline for Lissa instead of heading down the aisle immediately, and the Doctor came up and wrapped an arm around her. "Are you okay?"

"Restless baby and I really need a loo." But she smiled at him. "I'll be fine. Meet you outside the church. You're invited to the reception. I know there's a seat for you, because I helped with the seating chart."

He kissed her forehead. "I'll be there." Again he gave her that brilliant grin before he released her to let her walk down the aisle.


	18. Dancing in the Dark

Sarah managed to slip off to the loo before she left the church, knowing she'd have to stand in the reception line for a while. She smiled when she noticed Nat introducing the Doctor to Josh and shortly thereafter, the Doctor was right in front of her with the same old mischievous look in his eyes. He shook her hand gravely, then stole another kiss before heading off to mingle. She hoped he wouldn't get into too much trouble.

At least he seemed to be going along with her request. They had never been much for public displays of affection even when they had been lovers (as opposed to whatever they were now), but Sarah needed to prove to both Josh and Nat that she didn't have a romantic interest in Josh. And that meant making it clear that the Doctor was her one true love.

After about fifteen minutes on the receiving line, Josh suggested she go off and rest, as she looked a little worn. She accepted the reprieve gratefully and she went off to hunt the Doctor. She found him deep in conversation with the leader of the band.

"What happened with Trix? I thought you two...."

The other man grinned, "We broke up less than a year after we left you. Shipboard romance and all that. Stayed friends though. She and Anji are off running scams and I went back to what I know best." He caught sight of Sarah. "Did you have a request?"

"Oh, Sarah, lovely." The Doctor wrapped an arm around Sarah's waist. "Fitz Kreiner, Sarah Jane Smith."

"So you're Sarah." Fitz reached over and shook her hand, "I'm glad to finally meet you."

"Likewise." She arched an eyebrow at the Doctor. "And yet you never mentioned me to Rose...."

The Doctor ignored the jab and instead said, "You should probably sit down, you've been on your feet most of the afternoon. It was good seeing you again, Fitz. We should get together sometime."

"We should. Talk about old times and all that. I still can't get over how you've changed."

"It does take some getting used to. But I've grown rather fond of the latest model." Sarah smiled at him. "Oh, wait, before I forget." She wrote down Jo's name and number. "A friend of mine is trying to get all of his former companions together. Don't ask," she said at the Doctor's quirked eyebrow. "It's Jo. You know what she's like. Anyway, if you're interested, call her."

"I might. It would be nice to have someone to talk to about him besides Anji and Trix, though I'll pass this on to them too. And now I'd better go back to work."

The Doctor started steering her towards their table. "I didn't even know you and Jo knew each other."

"Liz introduced me to her ages and ages ago. I can't say we're inseparable, but the three of us and Tegan get together for lunch occasionally and she's been very supportive throughout my pregnancy."

He stared at her thoughtfully before asking, "Does she know?"

"That you're the father? It, um, slipped out at one point. She claimed to believe me, but it turned out she was just humouring me. The same with Liz, but as I didn't know where Harry was, I didn't have anyone else I could trust and," she lowered her voice, "Nat came up with this crazy idea that I'd made you up and the baby was Josh's."

"Hence the request for mushiness." He grinned at her.

"The situation with Josh is tricky. The whole cult thing. I'm the herald in his eyes and he's got me on a pedestal. It's better for both of them if I make it absolutely clear that I'm otherwise entangled. This all came out when we were decorating the baby's room, which is when I found out that Tegan, Jo and Liz were being supportive friends despite my 'delusion'." She felt his arm tighten around her.

"Oh, the baby is definitely mine, Sarah Jane." He pulled out her chair with a flourish. "And maybe I should have a talk with the others."

Sarah sat down in it. "Always the gentleman. You don't need to do that. I know it might be awkward. Especially since I'm not supposed to know."

"They're grown women," he said idly "They can understand that my relationship with you was different. They've all moved on with their lives." He sat down beside her. The rest of the wedding party was still mingling so they had the table to themselves for the moment.

"Unlike me," Sarah couldn't help saying softly. "All the better to convince you what happened between us was a bad idea."

"Sarah, don't do this. I said something careless that first night, and you've never let it go. I'm not the man I was back then." He ran a thumb down the back of her hand. "I've never regretted you. And you may have been the first, but you weren't the last."

She stroked his cheek. "Oh, I know that, and for what it's worth, I haven't been celibate either. It's just that every time I see you lately, I've been a clingy mess."

"You're ten months pregnant with an alien child and you've discovered that your friends think you're delusional. If anyone has a right to cling to me it's you. And on your worst days you're not as clingy as Rose was towards the end of her time with me. You shouldn't be going through this on your own. If I'd realised how bad things were going for you, I would have made more of an effort to be around." He glanced around and noticed Nat and Josh coming over to the table, "People are starting to settle down, perhaps we should change the subject."

Sarah followed his eyes. "I think you're right." She smiled as Nat and Josh and Josh's cousin Steve and his wife Christa sat down, and she felt the Doctor's arm slip protectively around her shoulders.

Even knowing that it wasn't real, she couldn't help thinking that she could pretend, just for one night. Not that he'd ever understand and not that she ever would have suggested it, if she hadn't had an excuse. It wasn't as though this was something she liked normally, but once in a while she had thought it must be nice, and she supposed watching Josh and Nat had made her sentimental.

It was times like these she felt the gap between them most keenly. His usual distracted scientist manner was familiar; her aunt had been the same. But when they started trying too hard to be what the other needed, the cracks began to show.

She leaned against the Doctor's shoulder and let the conversation go on around her. Josh was interrogating the Doctor, and to her relief the Doctor wasn't being his usual, honest, I'm a thousand-year-old alien from the planet Gallifrey self, but was giving suitably vague answers. He seemed bemused by Josh's questions and inclined to play the adoring boyfriend and father-to-be to the hilt.

Josh seemed more relieved than anything else. Sarah knew Nat's accusation had shocked him, but she hadn't been certain that he hadn't been entertaining feelings for her. But now he was teasing her about catching the bridal bouquet and being as happy as they were.

Once the first course was served, the conversation turned to more general topics, and the Doctor continued to act like he worshiped her. Sarah finally started to relax and enjoy the evening.

He was preening. Of course he would go over the top with this. And he was. While he was chatting with the others, he kept giving Sarah little doting glances and once he absently kissed her forehead.

Sarah found herself resisting the urge to roll her eyes, though she did stamp on his foot. Thankfully he got the message and restrained himself to playing with her hand and discussing how he was looking forward to seeing what they'd done with the nursery when he took her home that evening.

The Doctor's enthusiasm about the baby was obviously real. His interest in her...well, she hadn't been the only one in his life. Rose had driven that home. And given that he had never mentioned her to Rose, Sarah suspected it was a case of out of sight, out of mind where she was concerned.

Sarah was almost relieved when the conversation turned to cricket and the Doctor somehow managed to not suggest he was at a famous match in 1912 or something. As Sarah's interest in cricket stemmed from her time travelling with him and Steve had played professionally for a time, they ended up having a rather lively conversation.

When the dancing started, and Nat had insisted there be dancing, even if her own participation was limited, Sarah danced with Steve, who had been the best man, then with Josh. After he had returned her to her seat, she resisted the urge to tease the Doctor into asking her to dance. But while they watched the dancers, the Doctor gave her that mischievous smile again and said, "I believe they're about to play our song."

"I didn't realise we had a song," Sarah murmured. "And the next song is 'Always' which is about as inappropriate as you can get for us. Unless you've been messing with Nat's playlist and I can assure you she won't be happy about that. She took her music choices very seriously."

"I asked Nat for permission first. Played up the romantic angle, just as you asked. And as for our song, I chose the first one we danced to - thankfully it's already been written."

Sarah started to laugh uncontrollably. "Oh, god, you can't mean that night on Calypso. I wouldn't call that hotel 'romantic'. 'Erotic', maybe. A bit of an eye-opener, for a nice twentieth-century girl like me."

"And yet by the end of the evening you had got into the spirit of things and propositioned me." He grinned at her.

"Rewriting history are we? You were the one who made the first move, as I recall. I also remember starting out the evening wondering how to refuse you politely." God, she was flirting with him. That never ended well.

"But you didn't." He took her hand and helped her to her feet, leading her out on to the dance floor.

"Okay, it was romantic, and you were being very thoughtful and charming and I don't know, maybe I started looking at you a little differently." She stroked his cheek with her finger. "And I remember the song, maybe a little too well. 'Do Nothing 'til You Hear From Me'." Sarah trailed off as the song started and he drew her close. "Not exactly the message I need to be hearing."

The Doctor didn't comment, just danced.

Sarah wondered if this was all an unspoken apology for what would happen after the baby was born. She wished she could believe that he wouldn't take the baby, but she hadn't been able to convince herself of that. And the more she dwelt on it, the larger the gap between them seemed to be. She wished he would say something, but she didn't dare ask, for fear of the answer.

So she held him and danced, and tried to pretend that everything was going to be alright.


	19. Behind the Mask

When Josh entered the back garden with Liz and Nat behind him, Sarah could tell something was wrong. She was eleven months pregnant and it was inevitable that someone would notice. Not her size or weight - both were surprisingly close to a traditional nine-month pregnancy - but she'd made the announcement more than ten months ago.

"Hello, Liz." She had tried since the day they had painted the nursery to pretend nothing was wrong; she wasn't sure if she had succeeded.

"Sarah." Liz hesitated at the gate staring at Sarah, before she walked in and sat down beside her on the swing seat. Taking Sarah's hand, she said, "I think it's time to talk about what really happened to you, Sarah."

Sarah had tried the truth; it hadn't worked. This time she'd let Liz fill in the gaps. "What do you mean, what really happened?" She kept her voice neutral. She didn't want Liz to think she felt threatened or that she was weaving stories to get out of being backed into a corner.

"Something happened to you, Sarah. Something traumatic. I don't know what, but you've convinced yourself that everything's alright or that the Doctor will make it all better. There's no pretending you're pregnant any longer...this has gone on too long. I think you've got a parasite inside you and we need to get it out before it does any further damage."

Sarah closed her eyes and counted to ten. This was worse than she had ever imagined. She turned to Nat and Josh. "You met him. The Doctor. At your wedding."

Nat took Sarah's other hand and said gently, "Sarah, I know he was an actor. Someone you hired to play the part of your devoted boyfriend to make me feel better. But he wasn't old enough to be the man you described to me. And no one that devoted would be leaving you on your own for long periods of time when you obviously need him."

Sarah could tell from the look on his face that Josh felt the same. She had a sudden horrific memory of the Doctor telling her once about dying on the operating table causing his seventh regeneration. She wouldn't regenerate, though, and she didn't know if her baby was far enough along or strong enough to survive whatever Liz decided to do to get rid of this 'parasite'. "So, what now?"

"We get you to a hospital," Liz said, "do an ultrasound to find the parasite and then figure out how to kill it."

"And if it's baby shaped?" Sarah couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice. "Will you still kill it? I told you the baby wasn't human."

"But you are. And human pregnancies don't last this long. Even if the father weren't human, it's your body." Liz stood. "Sarah, I'm not doing this to hurt you, but if you won't tell me what really happened, I'll have to find out some other way."

Sarah started to reply, then reconsidered. Liz clearly wasn't going to take her word for anything at the moment. And the reality was far stranger and more complicated than Liz knew. She found herself wishing that Calla were here. As many times as she'd resented the other woman's superior attitude, Calla had a way of taking control of situations like these.

Liz was still speaking, though Sarah hadn't heard a word. "It explains everything - the weird mood swings, the anomalies in your blood, the odd symptoms, the erratic behaviour. And it makes more sense than the story you've been telling us. I'll just give you this sedative...."

Sarah didn't even think about what she was doing, but her hand flew up to knock the syringe out of Liz's hand. "No. I'll come with you, but no drugs. I won't risk my baby." She saw Liz's face and took a deep breath; she had to say this just right. "Liz, think, what did you expect I'd do? Even if this is all in my head, I believe it, and I'll do anything to protect my baby. Isn't humouring me the better course of action? Or are you trying to force me to have a nervous breakdown?"

"Sarah, I...."

She had been paying attention to Liz, not Nat and hadn't seen the syringe in the other woman's hand - only felt it as it pierced her skin. "Nat. What are you doing?"

"You're behaving irrationally, Sarah. Don't you see that? All these stories in your head. You claim you're not the Herald, but deep down, I think you believe it, because it makes you feel special. You're not special and you don't need to lie to us, to your friends. Liz is going to fix this and everything will be alright." Nat's voice was soft and even, almost unnaturally so.

Sarah tried to focus, despite the drug flooding her system. There was something there, that she could see out of the corner of her eye, something that didn't want her to notice it. That just made her more determined. She stared at Nat. There - a black tentacle. It took her foggy mind a moment to identify it as a Movellan Brain Parasite.

The thing had obviously been drawn to Nat's feelings of insecurity and fear about losing Josh to Sarah. Sarah didn't know if it had been after her or the baby or the Doctor, and it didn't really matter. The parasites were telepathic, she remembered, and it had to be controlling Liz and Josh as well, feeding off of and drawing power from Nat's negative emotions, twisting their doubts about her into distrust and fear.

Which had to be where the sedative came in. During the war she'd been trained to shield her mind - not that the Daleks had used telepaths - but it had been part of the Time Lord's idea of combat readiness. This couldn't be a coincidence, it must be trying to get at her or her baby and Sarah couldn't allow that.

She'd also been trained to fight being drugged and her altered body chemistry seemed to be helping her in that. She wouldn't be able to hold out for long, but she could fight a little longer. She just had to make sure she didn't give it any emotions that it could use against her.

"How is she going to fix it, Nat? It's my life, can't you let me make my own choices?" If she could win a conversation with Jack Harkness, she could do this. All she had to do was remain calm.

"From what I've seen, you haven't got a great track record in that. It wasn't all that long ago that you left me to die." The pain was evident in Nat's voice.

Sarah couldn't think of that now, couldn't let guilt get the better of her. "To save the world. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." That was it. Quoting sci-fi characters would give her some distance, and she needed to make sure she wasn't sucked in.

"That's nonsense. You just don't care. Not about me or anybody else except yourself," Nat said harshly.

The sedative actually seemed to be helping. Everything felt more distant, even if she could feel her psychic shields fading. "I care. You don't understand. I can't save everybody. I just have to do the best I can with the information I have at the moment."

"You're not very good at it, are you Sarah? Think of everyone you've failed, all the promises you've broken. Me, the Doctor. Romana. Calla. You're pregnant with a baby you don't want; your life is a mess. Is there really any point in your survival?" A twisted view of Nat's feelings matched with her own memories and no understanding of the latter.

But it was focused on her now. Sarah was aware of Liz and Josh in the background, frozen like statues, still under the thing's control but not being used at the moment. She let out a sharp laugh. "You say that like it matters what I want. What I've done, or haven't done. And pulling names out of my head without context was a mistake. You speak of survival. This," she patted her belly, "is all about survival."

She stood and paced, her eyes focused on Nat, willing her to overcome the parasite. She continued, hoping something would sink in, "Stuffed animals and cute baby clothes are wonderful things, but they're a luxury I never expected to have. When I planned..." her voice broke, but she forged on, "when I decided I wanted a baby it was for different reasons. I was in the middle of a war you can't even imagine. The most basic instinct: to try to continue the species, when you're not even sure you'll live to see another day. And I don't regret the choices I made then, or the promises."

"Which you have broken. I can feel it in your mind, the regrets and the pain." It wasn't Nat speaking, Sarah had to remember that.

She could feel the stillness of the others, watching her, aware but unable to move. "In wartime, promises are broken. We were fighting a war of attrition." Her voice grew soft. "Making plans for a future we might not live to see. Because we had to, because even if we didn't win, we had to hold the line against the dark." More quoting. Delenn and Laura Roslin. It was, after all, that sort of situation.

"None of the people you mentioned earlier would expect me to keep a promise that circumstances made impossible. None of them would blame me for doing the best I can. The only way I fail them is by giving up on my baby. By giving up on life. In the end they sent me home rather than let me perish   
with them."

"But they're the ones who should have survived. They were so much better than you. Smarter, stronger...No," Nat broke through, "Sarah is the strongest person, I've ever known. I...If you're so strong," the thing took control again, "why do you always need Josh around to fight your battles for you?"

"Because I learned that you have to lean on someone. Because people make choices, and sometimes they're the wrong ones. Because I've got blood on my hands, and maybe I wanted to believe I could be clean again. Because he reminds me I was human once."

"You're human, Sarah," Nat pushed through again.

"Am I? You don't know what they did to me. I'm eleven months pregnant, Nat and no, I didn't miscount. The war I fought was on alien soil, against alien enemies." She paused thinking of how to put this, she didn't want to give too much information to her foe, but she needed Nat to understand her choices. "Enough carnage and death and the survival instinct kicks in, even if it isn't your species that's dying. I had no way of getting home. I'd taken an alien lover and they had the technology to alter my DNA, to enable me to carry his child. I didn't, then. It would have been foolish to have a baby during the war."

"And now." Liz's voice, soft but sure. The monster's hold was loosening. "I'm starting to get the picture, Sarah. There must have been at least one survivor of that war to father your child."

"One survivor." She repeated. She stopped pacing and met Nat's eyes. "And that's why you'll never win against me. Because all I've got left to lose is my life. And no, it's not going to happen. I'll live for their sake, and this baby," her hand brushed her stomach again, "who I thought I'd never have, is my last promise to them. Life. Survival in its most basic form. This is where I hold the line."

"And you say you're not the Herald," Josh said quietly.

Fuck. The last thing she needed to do right now was destroy Josh's world view, but she didn't have a choice. "There isn't some golden alien race out there, ready to lead the Earth into its bright future, Josh. The alien races I've met have mostly been like us. We need to take responsibility for ourselves."

"How can you keep fighting me? You have nothing left. You've failed."

Sarah could see the tentacles starting to loosen. "I've succeeded. I've had the life they wanted me to have. I've spent too many years succumbing to survivors guilt, it's time to stop." The creature was losing its grip, now was as good a time as any for the big push. "Nat, that means you too. Stop thinking that Josh loves the Herald more than he loves you. Stop worrying that because you've suffered from some of the hard choices I've made that I'll be a bad mother."

"Stop doubting myself and this thing will lose it's hold on me," Nat said, cool and sure. "You're right. Josh may worship you, but he loves me." She smiled at him. "And you care about me too, or you wouldn't have fought the way you did. I'm sorry I doubted you, Sarah." She made a sudden movement and the parasite was flung free.

Sarah drew Josh's gun from her waistband in a smooth movement and emptied it into the creature, leaving an oozing mess on the ground. She finally took a breath.

"Good shot," Josh said. He immediately crossed the garden and laid Lissa in Nat's arms before hugging both of them. "Are you alright?"

"Now I am." She kissed Lissa's head.

Sarah could see them kissing out of the corner of her eye. She felt the adrenalin leaving her body, and suddenly she doubled over in pain.

"Sarah?"

Liz's voice, quite close, but she couldn't focus, couldn't...she managed to get her mobile out of her pocket and speed dial a number. Another cramp wracked her body before she could speak and she dropped the mobile. And then her control slipped and she felt the sedative flood her body. She dimly hoped he'd understand. She could barely think.

She must have passed out because the next thing she was aware of was Josh's voice, through the haze of pain. Sarah vaguely thought he must have picked up her mobile because Liz was there trying to get her comfortable. She forced her eyes open.

"Sarah, look at me." Liz stroked her hair gently. "The sedative...it's one used often in labour. I wasn't that stupid. But if your physiology was changed, I don't know how your body will react."

"The baby...my waters broke." Sarah forced the words out before succumbing to the drug. Josh had stopped talking, but she couldn't focus well enough to see what he was doing. All she could do was lie there and let them take care of her.


	20. You're Having My Baby

The pain was fighting with the sedative Sarah had been given. She kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

A familiar grinding noise broke her reverie. "Doctor," she moaned softly.

"Yes, Sarah, it's the TARDIS. I hope he has medical equipment in that thing, because I'm not sure we can move you. And I don't know what sort of complications to expect." Liz stood. Sarah thought she might be getting ready to greet the Doctor and wondered if she'd accepted her story or was just trusting him to sort it all out. Another wave of pain washed over her.

"Sarah." The Doctor was suddenly kneeling beside her. "Focus on my voice."

"Doctor." She managed the barest of smiles, before he picked her up and carried her inside the TARDIS. She lolled her head against his shoulder, aware of the pain and nothing else, her head foggy from the drug. She thought she heard Rose's voice and Jack's, but that had to be a mistake.

She was lying on something soft now. She could hear voices but couldn't identify them through the haze.

"Liz, I don't suppose you have her medical records. Give them to Martha, she's a proper doctor."

Someone murmured something about the sedative.

"Not quite."

Someone was undoing her trousers.

"This should counteract the sedative a bit."

Sarah felt a pinch on her arm, and immediately her head was clearer. She was suddenly wracked with a sharp cramp, realised the sedative had been dulling the pain and wished it still were.

"She's almost fully dilated already."

"Labour among my species is quick, but not usually this painful. Sarah, can you hear me? If you can, squeeze my hand."

Sarah forced her muscles to do as he asked.

"Good, when Martha says so, you need to push. This should be over quickly, then you can rest."

She tried to smile at him, but the pain was almost constant now.

"Sarah, push."

She put everything she had into it.

"I've got her, one more good push should do it."

"I've got you, Sarah, you can do this."

The Doctor was still holding her hand so she gripped it and did as he asked, passing out again in the process.

"Give her to Sarah."

The Doctor's voice woke her and Sarah was dimly aware that the pain seemed to have gone. She opened her eyes. "The baby." Her voice faltered. She felt incredibly tired. She did notice she'd been moved out of the infirmary and into her own bedroom.

"The baby." A woman she supposed was Martha put her into Sarah's arms. "Your daughter."

The Doctor moved to the side of the bed and arranged the pillows to help her sit up. He grinned brightly at her and offered the baby a finger. "Hullo, I'm your dad and this is your mum. We're very pleased to meet you."

The baby grabbed his finger, making Sarah smile. "How long was I out for?" She cuddled the baby tighter, not knowing what else to do.

"About fifteen minutes. She's absolutely perfect. The drug doesn't seem to have reached her system. You've outdone yourself, Sarah Jane." He kissed the top of her head. "How are you feeling?"

"Exhausted." She suddenly realised the others had left the two of them alone, and wondered idly what had happened to Nat and Josh.

"I'm sorry. If I'd realised your labour would be quite so rough, I would have been hovering much closer." The Doctor sat down on the bed beside her, smiling absently at their daughter, who was starting to nuzzle at Sarah's breast. "I think she's hungry. Here, let me take her for a moment."

Sarah awkwardly pulled her shirt up, watching him. "You're so good at that."

"I have done it before, you know. You'll get the hang of it. And aren't you the bestest baby ever? Our fabulous Fred. Here." He laid her back in Sarah's arms, absently adjusting both of them. "Let her find the nipple on her own. That wasn't hard, was it?"

"No." Sarah hadn't really thought about this part. About how it would feel to be holding and feeding her baby. She was actually quite sweet. "You never did see the nursery." She bit her lip, waiting for the other shoe to drop, not wanting him to feel guilty about this. He carried too much guilt already.

"I will. I'm looking forward to it. I should probably check up on everybody. I just dumped your friends on Jack and Rose, and from what I saw they seemed a bit bewildered by the TARDIS. I decided you'd be better off in your own bed, but I don't think I told anybody. Maybe Liz did."

"I'm still feeling awkward about explaining to Josh that you're an alien. Though I expect Rose and Jack will have done so. And, um, telling Rose that you're the father." And what was Rose doing here anyway? The last Sarah had heard she was trapped in that parallel world. Sarah decided to save that question for later, when she felt better.

"Well, we've got past that bit, at least. When we left the TARDIS all my attention was on you, and I think I made it clear to everyone present that it was my child. I'll have to talk to her though. The timing is...awkward." He stroked her hair again. "She had just shown up and we were trying to figure out how she got back to this side of the Void when you called. Something's terribly wrong with the fabric of space and time and I'm still trying to track down the source."

"I wonder," Sarah said softly. "The last time I saw you, eighteen years ago, was when you left me off in Brighton before going off to twist time and space so that neither the Time Lords nor the Daleks had ever existed."

"You remember that." A shadow crossed the Doctor's face.

Sarah touched his cheek. "I didn't forget. I never forgot. And maybe that's part of the problem. Now admittedly I got most of my knowledge of temporal physics from those children's shows I watched back on Gallifrey. Heaven knows, I've still got the theme song to _Into the Vortex_ stuck in my head. But I remembered and you survived and the Daleks did too."

"One Dalek," the Doctor corrected.

"One Dalek, at first I bet. But the next time you met them there were more, and there were more at Canary Wharf and then I ran into some near Cardiff - you can ask Jack about that or Josh." Sarah paused to marshal her thoughts. "Something wasn't quite right. The deal was all or nothing, but...it's like knitting; if you don't fasten the end in properly, you can unravel it with a good tug. It's like it worked for a while and now it's coming apart. You surviving and me remembering made it possible that they'd regain a foothold, and after Canary Wharf people have seen the Daleks. They believe." She cuddled Fred tighter.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling them both close. "Go on," he said tightly.

"It's about possibilities, isn't it? You somehow left a loophole, a possibility that some survived, and now they're exploiting it." She switched into Gallifreyan, because there were no words in English to explain her theory.

After a moment, he started nodding his head and extrapolating on her theory. After a few minutes, he'd far surpassed her basic understanding of the problem at hand and was considering how to deal with it.

"I do. I think you're right. I left a loophole that I should have closed off, because I didn't want to believe. I forgot that I was the one holding this reality together, or maybe I wanted the possibility. I didn't go back to Gallifrey because I didn't want to...I couldn't deal with whatever I would find there. As much as I believed no one else survived, I needed that small hope. I'm sorry." He stood abruptly, running his fingers through his hair. "We need to sort this out soon, but I'd rather wait until you're stronger. Did you want to see anyone," he asked, "or do you want to rest?"

"Nat and Lissa, please. No one else just yet." She had to clear the air with Nat.

"I'll send her up to you." He kissed Fred and then kissed Sarah gently on the lips. "I'd go without you, but we need to see this resolved, and you might be key, being so entangled in this mess. And I think we should wait until you've recovered a bit." He gave her a quick smile and disappeared out the door.

Sarah didn't blame him for wanting to hurry. She looked down at Fred torn between hope and fear of what this might mean for her. Once she had promised Calla that she would raise her baby on Gallifrey, thinking she'd never be able to go home. Calla had died in the war, but there were others who might feel it her obligation to do so, who if she and the Doctor were correct might have survived. And given the chance that she might be able to keep that promise, Sarah wasn't sure she was willing to break it.

Rocking Fred gently, Sarah wondered if once she set foot on Gallifrey again, she'd be allowed to leave. She smiled ruefully, thinking that even if she were, they'd probably insist she leave the baby behind, and she wouldn't do it. Living on Gallifrey, as stifling as it was, would be better than losing her child.


	21. Have You Met Fred?

The Doctor was as good as his word. Five minutes later Nat peeked through the door, just as the baby finished nursing.

"How's the new mum?"

"I've been better. I want you to know that I admire you more than you know. I'm not even sure which end is up at this point. Expect me to call often with questions." Sarah had thought about what to say, and decided that asking for Nat's help, which she knew she would need later, would be the best approach. She awkwardly jiggled Fred on her shoulder. "Is this right?"

"Yes. It gets easier. I was a nervous wreck right after Lissa was born. I doubt you'll be that bad." She rolled over to the bed. "Not quite as cute as Lissa."

"Hey, that's my baby you're talking about." Sarah gave Fred a doting smile. "Do you want to swap? I'll hold Lissa if you want to hold Fred." She almost bit her tongue, but Nat knew Fred's father was an alien now.

"Why not?" Nat laid Lissa on Sarah's lap and took Fred. "Hello, adorable." She looked at Sarah and said hesitantly, "She's a little cool to the touch."

"Lower body temperature. It's normal. The Doctor used to claim that sharing a bed with me was like sleeping with a life-sized hot water bottle." She cuddled Lissa, absently. "I kept thinking Lissa felt feverish. I have the same problem with human men, to be honest. Even before they started playing with my DNA, I'd been his lover too long and my sense of normal was skewed. After a while, I just stopped trying. You'll also notice her pulse is a little odd."

"But you...you're human. I've bandaged your wounds. You've been in hospital."

Nat sounded bewildered and Sarah didn't blame her. If she hadn't worked closely with Calla, she might not have understood either. "It's hard to explain, but Calla wasn't trying to change me into her species, but to work with my body so that I could carry a child to term. The changes are only noticeable at the DNA level. I don't give blood; I don't carry an organ donor card but mostly my physiognomy is still human." She offered Nat Lissa back and they swapped again.

"So what is he? The Doctor I mean. I'm sorry about all these questions," Nat added awkwardly, "But discovering that your best friend's lover is an alien...."

"It's weird, I know. The Doctor's a Time Lord. His planet's...gone. Destroyed in the war. It's a long and complicated story and I should probably save it for sometime when my head is clearer. Reproductive biology's mostly the same." She smiled at Nat. "I know you're wondering. The differences are internal rather than external for the most part." She glanced down at Fred, who had fallen asleep. "And we're close enough physically that we found each other attractive."

"I guess I get that. He is rather cute," Nat teased. "Although, I imagine when you first met, you were closer to his apparent age."

Sarah couldn't help giggling. "His species changes...regenerates when they're near death. He didn't look anything like that when I first met him. In fact, I'd say he looked about my current age or older and I was younger than he looks now. We can't seem to coordinate that for some reason."

"He obviously adores you though. I'm sorry about what I said earlier. All of it." Nat's voice faltered at the apology.

"Well, I have been acting weird and I can understand your reluctance to believe he was real. I, um, asked him to overdo the doting lover to reassure you that I wasn't interested in Josh and I guess it backfired a bit. He isn't usually that demonstrative. And, just so you know, besides that, everything I told you about our relationship is true." Sarah paused, then added, "I left out some of the less believable aspects, but I did try to be honest with you and Josh."

Nat squeezed her hand. "I know you did and I'm very sorry about what happened. That thing took every fear I had..."

"And twisted it into something worse. I know. I've dealt with them before."

"I don't know how you managed to stay cool." Lissa started fretting, and Nat shifted so that she could feed her.

"It didn't understand what it got from my mind. I was there when Calla died, Nat. I...she was the head of the committee charged with planning for the future. How her people would survive and rebuild after the war. I was placed on the committee by the President, who was a friend of the Doctor's and who thought I might have a unique viewpoint. I worked with her and after her death, I became the head of the committee. That was my world for the longest time." She rocked the baby, hoping she wouldn't accidentally wake her. "When it comes down to it, the only way I could fail Calla was by giving up, by losing my baby. That wasn't going to happen."

"Sarah."

She looked up to see the Doctor in the doorway.

"Do you want me to take her so that you can rest a little?" He didn't give her a chance to reply, but strode into the room and snatched the baby from her lap.

"And you can show her off," Sarah replied good humouredly.

"That too," he replied with a grin.

"Wait. Can you help me into the nursery? And then let everyone come up. I don't really want to sleep now."

"Nightmares?" He asked gently. "Okay. If you feel you're up to it. But I want you to get some rest tonight."

"I promise I will. Nat, come with me." Sarah watched her holding Lissa in one arm and manoeuvring the wheelchair to the door with her free hand. "I think I'm going to be jealous. Especially when I'm lugging around a two-year-old."

"It has it's advantages." But Nat smiled. "I'll meet you there."

"Sounds good." Sarah leaned on the arm the Doctor offered her.

"Can you stand?"

Sarah tried, but her legs still felt wobbly.

"Take Fred then." He unceremoniously dumped the baby back in her arms, and then picked them both up.

She smiled up at him, and was rewarded by a quick kiss.

"Now direct me. Liz just showed me where your bedroom was. I assume it's on this floor." He was already walking out the door.

"The next door down to the left. I made a sign and everything." Sarah grinned at him.

"So I see. Very nice. Your Gallifreyan handwriting is always so much neater than mine."

"I'd say that applies to English too." Sarah relaxed into his arms. She was so tired of being strong.

Nat had left the door open and he carried her inside, dropping her gently into the cosy armchair.

"Oh, this is just brilliant, Sarah Jane. Fantastic." The Doctor bounced around the room investigating everything. He set the solar system mobile swinging, then wandered over to look at the mural. "TARDIS parking. I take it I'm supposed to park here when I come round."

"If you want." Sarah said, giving Nat a bemused look. "I think Tegan meant it as a joke."

"Is he always like this?" Nat asked Sarah softly.

"To a greater or lesser extent. And people wonder why I find the idea of raising Fred so overwhelming."

The Doctor was staring at the mural more closely. "But...this isn't all Tegan's work. If I didn't know better...."

"Turlough helped. Thankfully no blood was spilled in the process. I never did find out what he was doing on Earth, but it was good to see him again. He ended up staying the night and we watched Battlestar Galactica and snarked about it." Sarah wondered idly if she could persuade the Doctor to take her to Trion, before or after they visited Gallifrey, so she could show Fred off to him.

"Sarah, I mean it, this is perfect," the Doctor noticed the chalk and absently started writing mathematical formulae on the wall. Sarah recognised enough of the temporal mechanics notations to know that he was trying to work out mathematically what had happened, but most of it was beyond her. "So much better than my home. Stuffy old lot. The nurseries there were all white and perfect and boring." He abruptly dropped the chalk on the little shelf Sarah had put up for it.

"Doctor, come here." Sarah reached out a hand to him, and he walked over and crinkled his eyes at her and the baby.

"My Sarah," he said softly, "As long as you're still here." His tone abruptly became more cheerful. "And I was going to go down and herd the others up her to see our wonderful little Fred."

"Yes, you were." Sarah smiled up at him.

He turned to Nat and grinned at her, "You'll take good care of them while I'm gone."

"Of course." Nat grinned back. "Off with you."

One more grin and he loped out the door.

Sarah sat back in her chair with a sigh and suddenly giggled. "And he didn't even notice the ceiling." But she had seen the shadow that had crossed his face when he'd mentioned his home and wasn't sure how he'd feel about the stars. At least it seemed his plan was for her to raise Fred here, giving her one less thing to worry about.

Nat stared at her. "The stars are the ones you can see from his home world, aren't they?"

"Yes, we used to take a picnic and go outside the dome and lie on our backs and watch the stars come out. This was before the war began in earnest. He'd tell me stories of his life there before he set off travelling and how he'd stare up at the stars and wish he was out there, among them." Sarah's voice drifted off, remembering, until she caught Nat's glance and continued, "He was always more like his own people than he ever wanted to admit, and he had more in common with them than he realised, but he never really fit in to their way of life."

She heard voices in the hallway and looked up to watch way too many people crowding through the nursery door. "Okay, Fred, are you ready to be admired?"

"Of course she is." The Doctor swooped in and stole her and started showing her off with gleeful pride.

After introductions and hellos, Sarah just relaxed in the chair and watched him, wishing she had even half of his energy and letting the background chatter wash over her. To her relief, Rose didn't seem too put out by the Doctor's sudden acquisition of a daughter. Jack was giving her strange looks though. But that was something to be dealt with later, in private. Josh seemed a bit wary, but Sarah put that down to the first time he had knowingly met a real, live alien.

There was a rap at the nursery door, and Sarah wondered for a moment who hadn't come up with the others.

The mystery was solved when Jo peeked through the door. "K-9 said I should just come up."

"Hallo, Jo. Look what I've got." The Doctor shoved Fred under her nose. "Isn't she adorable?"

"Did Sarah have her baby?" Jo asked, then stared at him for a moment, "Doctor?" she asked in tones of incredulity. "You look different."

"I am different. Now that we've covered the obvious, you haven't answered my question. Isn't Fred the most beautiful baby ever?" he demanded.

"Very cute." Jo stared at him thoughtfully. "Try not to spoil her with your adoration, Doctor. Now, can I get into the room to see Sarah?"

He gestured her past him and then pounced on Rose.

"Somebody hasn't had his Ritalin today," Jo muttered to Sarah and Nat as she pulled up a footstool and sat down. "You weren't joking about not being the bachelor uncle type any more, either."

"This seems to be this incarnation's default setting. Heaven help me, I think I'm getting used to it." Sarah pointed out his current companions.

Jo giggled, "Three of them. Isn't that a little extreme?"

Sarah smiled. "He had three on and off during his Fifth incarnation, remember. I don't know what the story is here, though." She looked around the room. Liz was deep in conversation with Jack, comparing secret organisations, Sarah suspected, and Martha and Rose were admiring Fred.

She looked up to see the Doctor hovering over her offering her Fred to cuddle, and she took the baby eagerly. "Hello, little one. Did your daddy tire you out?" She watched tiny eyelashes flutter and close, and a smile crept over her face.

The Doctor laid a hand on her shoulder, and said softly, "Our baby, our Fred."

"She is that. I feel like such a cliché at the moment."

"You just had a baby. You're allowed. Did I tell you how much I like what you did with this room?"

"Several times. And you haven't even noticed the ceiling yet." Sarah held her breath, but he had to see it sometime.

He looked up and his eyes widened. "Sarah Jane Smith, you didn't. How did you manage that?"

"K-9 had a chart. I thought...it's not too much is it...I just wanted her to see those stars the way you showed them to me, once." Her hands were full of baby or she would have reached out and touched him; she still didn't feel confident of her baby-handling abilities.

"No, it's perfect. Thank you, Sarah, for everything." He straddled the arm of the chair and wrapped an arm around her.

For the first time in ages, Sarah felt like things were going her way. She watched as the Doctor idly stroked the sleeping Fred with one finger, and started telling Nat (and everyone else) stories about what she'd been like when they first met. She wouldn't think about the forthcoming trip to Gallifrey or what they'd find there. Those were thoughts for another day.


	22. What You've Lost

He'd taken the baby. Sarah hadn't thought, hadn't wanted to believe he would be quite so callous about it, but after everyone had left he had encouraged her to go to sleep, and she had. When she woke up a few hours later she was alone in the house and the TARDIS was gone.

K-9 had been recharging in a corner and hadn't noticed anything, but then he wouldn't consider the Doctor, an enemy. After twenty minutes of frantic searching through the house, Sarah had to admit it to herself; he'd taken Fred and he probably wouldn't be bringing her back.

She ended up curled up in the floor of the empty nursery, too exhausted, both emotionally and physically, to throw things, although she desperately wanted to. She suddenly hated this room, and wondered why she had put so much effort into it. His admiration seemed like such a sham now. Why did she always let him get to her like this?

Sarah stared at the equations he'd written on the wall and tried and failed to fight off tears. He'd been so kind, that evening cosseting her and doting over their daughter. She'd dared to believe that everything was going to be alright. While all the while he'd just been patting her on the head in his usual absent-minded way, not really aware of what he was doing.

He'd wanted the child, of course. It was natural. He was the last of his kind and the species survival instinct was strong. And she'd been the only one left who could carry the child to term. Calla's research had died with her, early in the war. Otherwise, he probably would have turned to Rose. Sarah was relieved he hadn't. The girl didn't deserve that.

She had, at least, made the conscious choice to go through this, a long time ago. If they had stayed on Gallifrey, if that had even been possible, things might have been different. Calla, she remembered, had had strong feelings about that at least.

It had been almost the first thing Calla had said to her, that night on the TARDIS. She wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, and remembered.

Sandia had been the first major loss in the war. The planet had been devastated, the genebank destroyed, millions of people and more than a hundred unborn children. They had managed to save a few - a half a dozen children still safe in their artificial wombs, twice that number of staff, but that was all. They had tried so hard, but it was just too little, too late.

Calla was the Director of the entire genetics program. Leela had saved her by the simple expedient of knocking her out when she wouldn't come with them. Sarah, meanwhile, had dealt with the computers, pulling off as much biodata as possible, before helping Leela carry her to the TARDIS.

That night had almost been worse than the day. The Gallifreyans were silently mourning their losses, in shock over the carnage and what they had lost. Sarah was shaken herself by the devastation, and as much as she wanted to comfort the Doctor, she had no words for what had happened.

And then, when they were alone in the room they shared, Sarah had reached for him, thinking to comfort him with her body, to reaffirm that life went on. He'd snapped at her, called her callous and unfeeling, said she didn't, couldn't understand. He told her to leave, and she left. If she'd stayed, it would only have made things worse between them.

She'd wandered to the galley for a cup of tea, feeling fragile and alien. Incompatible instincts. If he'd been human, he would have understood. If she'd been Gallifreyan, she wouldn't have made that faux pas. They'd avoided this particular issue, up until now by keeping things light. She couldn't help wondering if this would break them in the end.

After what she'd seen on Sandia, Sarah had few illusions that she'd ever make it home again. Her survival depended on the Time Lords and more importantly on the Doctor. Limited resources might make her superfluous, given time.

Leela was in the galley staring into space. When Sarah greeted her, she said, "Andred rejected me. Why would he do such a thing? Is it because I am barren to him? You are more like them, than like me, though they say we are the same. Can you explain this?"

Sarah opened up the cupboard and started making the tea, trying to marshal her thoughts. "I...you're wrong, Leela. The Doctor rejected me tonight, just as Andred did to you. For the same reasons, I imagine. Maybe I understand them better, but still I am more like you. I'm still human. Losing those children was hard, and you and I both tried instinctively to replace them."

"And the Time Lords did not. I do not think so. Why would they not want to replace what is lost? Here are some biscuits to go with the tea." Leela put the tin on the table.

Sarah chose her words carefully. "Think about it, Leela. They grow their children in vats, you saw that. I don't know if they can bear children as you and I could. They don't lie together to make babies, they do it for pleasure. And that pleasure would be inappropriate while they are mourning their losses. It doesn't make it easier for us, though."

"Still, they have lost too much this day. Andred should put me aside for one who is not barren."

"I don't think he will, Leela. He cares too much about you." And I wish the Doctor cared as much about me, but it's not going to happen.

Just as the kettle whistled, Andred came through the door. "There you are. Leela, I'm sorry about what I said earlier."

"As am I. Sarah pointed out that our customs of mourning are different, and that I should respect yours."

He wrapped an arm around Leela's shoulders. "I should have understood that too. Come back to our room with me and we can talk. Goodnight, Sarah."

"Goodnight." Sarah watched them go and resigned herself to being alone. She doubted the Doctor would come looking for her.

Instead, shortly after Leela and Andred had left, Calla walked in. "Hello. Sarah, is it?"

"That's right, Lady Calla." Sarah hesitated. "Would you like some tea? I'm very sorry for your loss." It sounded so inadequate, but she didn't know what else to say. She still didn't have a firm grasp of social etiquette among the Time Lords, and wondered if she ever would.

There was an awkward silence as Sarah poured the tea.

"I overheard your conversation. You are worried about Leela's reaction."

The comment startled Sarah, but she gathered her wits and answered, "She'll be fine, I think." She bit her lip. "You can put it down to primitive instincts, I suppose."

"Andred had applied for a child but after I had seen some of Leela whilst in the Capital on business, I thought that no good would come of introducing alien genes into our race. Perhaps I was wrong. Giving her a child might be a kindness to both of them." Calla sipped the tea and watched Sarah over the cup.

Sarah couldn't help but feel that she was somehow being tested. "She loves him, and what she saw today...well, survival instincts aren't very logical. The urge to replace what was lost, even though it wasn't our species which suffered today. And we are not likely to return home after the war, if there is even a home for us to return to. Our survival lies with yours."

Calla nodded at her. "From what I have seen of Leela, she is direct and logical and all seems black and white to her. You, on the other hand seem to have some ability to think abstractly."

Sarah couldn't tell if this was a compliment, or a statement of fact.

Calla continued, "Perhaps we could talk for a time. I am suddenly curious about your species, and you clearly have some questions about mine."

"Are you sure you want to do this now, after all that has happened?" Sarah asked softly.

"Now is the precise time these questions should be asked and answered." Calla smiled grimly. "I had not expected either of you to grasp the extent of our loss. Our ways must seem so different to you. I was not even certain that Leela understood that those were our children."

"She has lived among you longer than I have, and perhaps has learned to accept on faith what she doesn't understand. In my own time, we are starting to see the possibility, but I think widespread use will be a long time coming." Sarah sipped her own tea and nibbled on a biscuit.

"Even among my people, this is not used 100%. I have surprised you, I think."

"I haven't seen any pregnant women since I came to live in the Capital, so yes you did. I wondered if you could."

Calla nodded, "You said something similar to Leela earlier. We do not have unwanted pregnancies here, and no one would choose to bear a child during war."

"And you have a much longer lifespan, so I imagine that waiting until afterwards would be less of an issue." Sarah thought a moment. "The women of my species have a limited time during which we can bear children, so perhaps the reaction is more visceral." Which would explain the Doctor's and Andred's reactions earlier.

"Our instincts are more...targeted, perhaps. Your language doesn't have a word for this I think. A couple forms based on the desire to bear a child together." She poured another cup of tea before continuing, "The desire can be quite as intense as your reaction tonight, I suspect, but it does not matter as much to us whether the child is womb-born or not. It would matter to Leela," she mused. "Would she accept a genetically engineered child as her own?"

That explained so much. "Maybe. I don't know. I think she would be more comfortable, bearing it herself. You're going to try, aren't you? To give Leela a child, I mean."

"I can understand her deep desire for a child with her chosen mate. And it is my life's work, after all. I would not have chosen willingly to deny someone a wished for child. It goes against my own Gallifreyan instincts," Calla replied almost sharply. "But your biology is designed to survive through creating as wide a range of biological diversity as possible and your instinct tonight was to get the nearest possible male to father a child on you. Among our people that is considered almost obscene."

Sarah stared at her silently, taking in the implications before she said, "It's not quite that unreasoning. Both Leela and I did go to men we had an established relationship with. If that had not been possible, we might have abstained, or found a like-minded man to bed. Though, in that case, I would probably have done something to prevent an actual pregnancy. I don't know about Leela. I don't think contraceptives are part of her culture." She realised that might not be as reassuring as she had intended and added, "But this applies mainly to interaction with other humans under specific situations. We do create families for the purpose of having children, although in our case it is more of a social structure than a biological necessity. Leela sees no one but Andred. She won't stray."

Calla stood to place her teacup in the dishwasher. "That is what I needed to know. Among our people, pleasure is of a moment, but mating, having a child together is a lasting bond. She may not have our instincts, but I needed to know that she would respect them. Thank you, our conversation has been most enlightening. But you had other questions, I think. Please, ask."

"I know there are two other genebanks and we salvaged as much as we could of the biodata, but what happens if they're both destroyed?" Sarah wondered if she was being tactless, but it was pertinent.

That got a look of approval from Calla. "The natural birth rate will rise sharply. The use of the genebanks has always been limited to encourage some womb-birth, after the war, the demand will go up, but it will take time to rebuild, and priority will be given to parings that cannot bear their own children. The rest of the population will wait or chose the more traditional path. We, like any other species will replace what is lost. Romana told me she wanted you on the committee I was returning to head, to consider the future of Gallifrey after the war. Did she speak to you of that? I had thought her misguided, but perhaps you will offer some perspectives that we would not have considered otherwise."

A backhanded compliment from a Time Lord. Sarah was becoming accustomed to being told that she was 'quite intelligent for a primitive'. "No, she hadn't mentioned it, but I'd be happy to do it. If nothing else, my people have come up with numerous disaster scenarios, which you might consider."

She and Calla had worked well together, Sarah thought, though she had always felt inadequate beside the other woman. And when Calla had died in the first attack on the Capital, Sarah had become the head of the committee. She'd never been quite sure why. Someone (she assumed it had been Romana) had decided that she would be the best person for the job, or perhaps it had all been political. A nice cushy spot for the Doctor's pet primitive, where she couldn't get into too much trouble.

The equations seemed to mock her and Sarah wondered if she had ever understood the Time Lords as well as she had thought. She considered erasing them, but he'd written DO NOT ERASE in large letters on the wall, and she couldn't help hoping against hope that it was a sign that he would return, and that she would see her daughter again someday.

The whole nursery was such a farce. She kept falling in to the same trap, believing he'd come back to her. "I love you," she whispered softly to the empty room. It didn't matter that he wasn't in the room, he wouldn't have heard it if he were standing right beside her and she were shouting in his ear.

With a sudden burst of energy, Sarah pulled the footstool over to the window, climbed up and started taking down the curtains. She couldn't do this. Couldn't deal with an empty nursery. She'd turn it into a library or a storeroom. 'I cannot give him a child,' Leela had said. Sarah had given the Doctor a child and he had taken it away. Calla had understood that she would want the baby too, but Calla was gone and the baby was gone and she had nothing left to fight for.


	23. All Fall Down

"Sarah, what are you doing?"

Sarah froze at the sound of his voice. "Taking down the curtains. Did you forget something?" Her voice was tight. She had too much pride to start yelling at him.

The Doctor ignored the question. "You shouldn't be up. You're still weak from the birth. Come down from there, Sarah, and let's talk."

"There's nothing to talk about. Where is she anyway?" She pulled away from his arms as he tried to help her down.

"In her crib. Sarah, what's wrong. Why are you taking down the curtains?" He caught her finally and lifted her to the ground.

Sarah tried to pull away, but couldn't manage it. "You left with Fred. Why did you come back?"

"She'll be hungry soon. I made a quick trip so that you'd have more time to sleep. You were so exhausted." He sounded almost concerned.

She didn't - couldn't trust it. It was only a matter of time before he left again. "Oh, of course. A convenient nursemaid, that's me."

"Sarah. Look at me, please." She struggled in his grip, but finally quieted. His voice was tight when he continued, "Sarah, I'm sorry, about all of this. I just keep making stupid decisions and wrecking your life."

At least he realised that. Sarah couldn't bring herself to speak.

After a moment, he spoke softly, "I know you never wanted a child, that you agreed to the genetic manipulation only to reassure Leela that it was safe."

How could he think that? "That wasn't the only reason," she said, fighting off tears, trying to think.

The Doctor freed one hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. "But it was a long time ago for you. The moment passed and your feelings changed. There's nothing wrong with that." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something.

There was something. She couldn't think. She'd been so overwhelmed by fear and depression, but it was starting to recede now, as though his presence was pushing it away. "Where's my baby?"

He stared at her, with a look somewhere between worried and confused, then let go. "Sit."

She sat in the big armchair and he picked up the baby and laid her gently in Sarah's arms. She held Fred a little too tightly, as though she didn't quite believe she was real and here and safe. The baby protested and she loosened her grip.

"Here she is, Sarah, our Fred." He squeezed in beside her. She'd suspected when she bought this armchair that they would both fit, if they snuggled. His closeness calmed her a little.

The baby burbled at her, and Sarah cuddled her. "Our baby." That was right. There was still something she was forgetting. It wasn't the brain parasite causing this. That she suspected had been lured here by her emotional instability...it had been a symptom, not the cause. "Why did you accuse me of not wanting our baby? I love you. Of course I love our baby." Logic. She was reacting emotionally, but there was something wrong with her logic. She tried to focus.

"Sarah, calm down. I'm not sure what's wrong but I promise I'll fix it." He was trying for reassuring, but he sounded almost...scared...hurt, she wasn't sure.

She looked up at him. "Why won't you answer my question? Is it because I'm human? You say nice things and you stroke my hair and God, I'm just a pet to you, aren't I? They've taught elephants to paint, but you'll never see their paintings next to the Mona Lisa. You can caress me, and tell me what a good human I am, but I'll never be your equal."

He went very still. "Sarah, you lived for decades on Gallifrey and managed to keep your head held high, why are you doubting yourself now? There are things besides intelligence, you know. Imagination, creativity, the courage to go out there and explore. Things I never found among my own people, no matter how hard I looked. And I certainly wouldn't be sleeping with a pet, even a Gallifreyan-shaped one."

She almost giggled at that.

The Doctor went on, "You agreed to have a baby with me during a time of war, but things change and you've lived eighteen years since. Your life is different now, and the choices you made then might not be relevant. You wanted to get on with your life and I was the one who wouldn't let you go, who wouldn't let this go." He had his arms wrapped around her now, holding her so tightly.

"You took the baby because you thought I didn't want her."

He looked bewildered again. "Sarah, I took the baby so you could rest. I always planned to come back." His next words slipped out, almost accidentally. "I thought I had more time."

She looked at him sharply, "It wasn't that long ago that you left me in Brighton, was it? Longer for me than for you."

"A year and a half for me. I thought I should get my head together before I saw you again. And I didn't think you remembered." The Doctor kissed her temple gently. "Sarah..."

"But I did, and I knew that if I'd retained those, then the changes to my body weren't erased either. I knew I was fertile when you came to my room that night." That was it, almost. She reached up and caressed his cheek. There was a reason she felt better in his presence, and a reason she stopped worrying when he held her. "Calla mucked with my biology."

"We knew that. You consented." He sounded uncertain, like he was afraid she might be regretting her choice. "But...." He stopped short and stared at her. "No. You're right. It was Calla. And given what she considered important, I should have been thinking about this totally differently. She wouldn't have stopped with the minimal genetic manipulation."

"I told Nat earlier that I looked younger because there were heavy doses of Gallifreyan hormones in my system, but depression is a chemical response. Hormonal imbalances during pregnancy can cause mood swings, so I wasn't too worried about it." The baby had fallen back to sleep in her arms, and Sarah gave her an abstracted smile.

"The Gallifreyan hormones are messing up your system. Sarah, I can't do anything about that until Fred is weaned. I think we're on the right track. You're calmer than you were, and that's something."

That wasn't what she meant. "I'm having severe illogical emotional reactions. I have been all throughout the pregnancy, and I put it down to hormones or lack of sleep or nightmares or PTSD, but I don't think any of those is the underlying cause. I worked with Calla and she was like you, explaining whether I understood or not. I know how she thought and I missed it."

He studied her intently. "Missed what?" Then, "The obvious, of course. That in her eyes, she didn't just need to make physical alterations, she needed to make sure you instinctively acted like my people. The right responses. She didn't think much of human families...too fluid and chaotic. She was afraid that you and Leela would end up hurting us, not out of spite, but out of carelessness. And it explains why you were never depressed when I saw you. I was afraid, that if I came round as much as I wanted, you would feel smothered. But if you were reacting like one of my people, you would have wanted that."

"I did, and didn't understand why I was being so clingy, or why you were suddenly so attentive when you were around." She managed a smile. "And I forgot that in your language, in general usage it's the couple that bears a child, not the woman." She settled back against his chest, knowing now it would make them both feel better. "There's a telepathic bond involved, isn't there, and we should have been doing this together, but I was so afraid to ask you to stay."

He kissed the top of her head, and said, "I didn't realise. I was trying, somehow to adapt to the less binding relationships you humans establish and I hated it. I wanted our child so badly for so long, but you were always so independent. I couldn't find a way to say it that didn't make it sound like I wanted you barefoot and pregnant." He reached round and stroked Fred's cheek. "She's so perfect, Sarah."

"Isn't she? I was so afraid you'd leave again and take her with you." Fred woke and started fretting and the Doctor helped Sarah adjust her so that she could feed her. "You thought I didn't want the baby and I kept trying to apply those instincts to human situations, and after seeing you with Rose, I thought you didn't want _me_. That I was only...that I was the only one left you could continue the species with. I knew how much you had wanted this once, but thought you regretted it now. And the depression made me look at the worst side of everything. If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have known better."

"Sarah, I never planned to do that. Her home is with you. She wouldn't be safe on the TARDIS, given the scrapes I get myself into." He gave her a mischievous grin, before pulling both of them into his lap. It would help her to be close; she wasn't a native telepath.

Sarah smiled as the baby caught the Doctor's finger and held it tightly. She was aware of both of them now at the edges of her mind. "Calla could have warned me. Maybe she did, in her own way. We spent so much time discussing methods of survival, both instinctive and practical and the differences between our species."

"She was very impressed by you. She was the one who recommended that you be put in charge of that committee. And your articles were intrinsic to Romana's strategies, both during the war and on the home front," the Doctor said absently, his attention focused on the baby.

Sarah wondered, not for the first time, if Fred would end up being horribly spoilt. "Doctor, you don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do. We all assumed you knew how valuable your opinions and insights and Leela's grasp of tactics and strategy were to us. Perhaps we should have said it more often." He pushed a strand of hair out of her face.

She looked at him seriously. "But it wasn't that I didn't know, or understand; it was trying to reconcile Gallifreyan reactions with human instincts and experience. And eighteen years of not knowing you had survived."

"And Rose." The baby finally let go of his finger and he used it to tickle her belly.

Fred blew bubbles at him.

"Don't torture her."

"I'm not. She's just so touchable, and sweet and wonderful."

"Are all Time Lords this sappy about babies? Because I am beginning to rethink this whole thing."

"No, you're not. You're my Sarah Jane and I've been wanting a baby with you for almost five hundred years. And now I've got one, so you'll have to forgive me for admiring every perfect inch of her."

Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "Stupid question, but how long does this last? I don't think either of us can take being joined at the hip for very long without an attempted murder."

"Well, if you're finished feeding the baby, and have calmed down a bit, my legs are starting to go numb. But a more proper answer would be that it should start getting easier now that I know what the problem is. I'd been blocking myself off from you so that you didn't feel overwhelmed by my constant presence in your head."

Sarah took the hint and stood up. "You've been in and out of my head so often over the years..." she mock-accused him.

"Oi. My turn to hold the baby. Hello, did you miss your daddy?"

"Nope, not one bit," Sarah said, pretending she was Fred. "Like mummy better. She's warm and cosy."

"But can your mummy do this?" The Doctor made a face.

"Mummy, mummy, daddy's being all scary." Sarah said, still in a squeaky baby voice, before she broke down, laughing so hard she had to sit on the floor to recover. "Oh, God," she said breathlessly. "I don't think I've laughed so long in...well since Turlough was here." She hesitated. "Could we go see him? After Gallifrey."

"We can visit as many of my former companions as you want. I'm all for showing off our little baby bunny here," he replied, bouncing Fred a bit. "And I'll figure out some way for you and Turlough to communicate, if you want. I know you two were great friends. Never did understand why though."

"Because we could gang up on you and mess with your mind. Could we head down to the kitchen? I'm suddenly hungry."

"I'll even cook dinner, while you hold the baby. Equal opportunity partner here." He was already halfway out the door.

"You're just scared of my cooking," she teased as she followed him down the stairs.

He turned to look at her. "Why would I be scared of your cooking? You used to cook on Gallifrey all the time. I don't know why you stopped."

"I cooked on Gallifrey because it was something to do. The first year or so, I was stuck in that flat trying to adjust to an alien language and culture while you were involved in the war planning. It wasn't until later I was co-opted, remember. And cooking was a good way to learn basic maths and directions. If you're going to carry the baby down these steep stairs, I'd appreciate it if you looked where you were going."

He made a face at her but faced front again. "I always thought you were so clever about that. I was so busy, but you managed to teach yourself my language and how to shop and an amazing amount of temporal physics."

"I had nothing better to do in the beginning. Watch that step, it's loose, and I haven't had a chance to fix it yet."

"At the risk of being yelled at, I'll offer to do it for you." He stepped carefully over it.

"Why would I yell at you?"

"To establish that you can do it yourself. Offering to do it doesn't mean I think you're any less capable of doing it yourself."

"I'm long past the age when I'd take offence at something like that, Doctor. Not that I know how old I am. I just took to counting from my date of birth in self-defence." She led him into the comfortable kitchen in the back of the house and sat down at the table watching him expectantly as he started dinner.

He gave her the baby. "As for your age..." he counted rather dramatically on his fingers, then said gently, "The war lasted over a century, Sarah. I can't tell you exactly though. I lost track of my own age after the Eye of Harmony was destroyed."

"And you wonder why I fell apart when I saw you again. That's a huge chunk of my life. Longer than most humans ever live. No wonder I feel so old, sometimes."

He sat down beside her for a moment. "I know, and I always felt so selfish, having you beside me for so long. Sarah, the hormones in your system...."

Sarah knew what he was going to say. "I've stopped ageing again, haven't I, or it's been slowed considerably. Calla thought that Leela and I should live to see our children grown, and she wasn't taking any chances."

"Just so you know that we'll have to find another solution eventually. And you'll remain fertile for a while."

Sarah looked down at the baby in her arms, then grinned at him. "Maybe. Not immediately, though. Give me some time to get used to having one. And speaking of your age, you may not know what it is, but what's with telling Rose you were 900, when you passed 1000 long before the war?"

"It wasn't deliberate, but I told her I'd been travelling in a phone box for 900 years, and she assumed I'd started as a baby. I never saw the point in correcting her." He grinned at her as if they were sharing a joke

She giggled.

He smiled at her. "I'm about five hundred years older than I was when you stowed away on the TARDIS, if that helps."

"And I was with you for over a century of that. It's hard to take in, sometimes. Human minds don't think in those terms. Fifty years is a long time for a marriage to last, and not just for the reasons that Calla disapproved of." She watched as he got up to cook. "It would be stranger if I could just walk away after all those years together. Especially since we didn't end badly."

The Doctor turned to face her, leaning back against the counter, "That's it then. Neither of us wants to break this off, so we continue this, whatever this is, for as long as we can. We managed on Gallifrey for decades; it's certainly worth a shot."

"Sounds good to me, now what about dinner, I'm starving." Sarah felt better than she had in a long time. Perhaps if they'd talked, instead of trying to protect each other, her pregnancy would have gone better, but he was here now, and that was what mattered. She cuddled her daughter close, and thought that maybe they could make this work.


	24. Long Ago and Far Away

Sarah spent the next week tripping over the Doctor. Admittedly, he was quite helpful with the baby, and had actual experience with being a parent, which she lacked. And it was nice to wake to find he'd crawled into bed beside her for one of his quick catnaps. But she knew his presence was a luxury she couldn't count on.

Eventually, she would have to get up in the middle of the night to feed and care for Fred, not just be woken with a gentle touch and a murmured "sorry" when the baby was hungry by the Doctor, who attended to any other baby needs whilst she slept. She did appreciate the reprieve for the moment, though, as her body recovered from the birth.

Fred was a surprisingly placid baby, taking her father's antics and her mother's snark as her due.

Sarah felt more maternal than she expected, but she suspected she would never be the doting mum that Nat was. Sarah and the Doctor had shocked the other couple more than once with their nonchalance to the point where Nat had accused them of treating their baby like a sack of potatoes. As long as Fred didn't seem to mind, Sarah felt this was a completely acceptable method of parenting. It wasn't as though their Fred wasn't cuddled frequently by both her parents.

The Doctor waited a fortnight before saying, "Martha and Rose should be back soon. I think Jack is going to stay at Torchwood. Are you up for that trip to see what's happened to Gallifrey? I'd rather not go without you."

Sarah nodded. "Ready when you are." She dreaded what they might find there, but it had to be done. They had to know how far this thing had unravelled. She debated inviting Nat and Josh to join them, but they already had a full TARDIS, and given the nature of this trip, it would be best not to have too many strangers about.

A few days later, the others showed up and after a quick packing job, the four adults and Fred were comfortably settled in the TARDIS.

The Doctor was abstracted and withdrawn during the trip, not even speaking to Sarah much. Instead he focused on fixing things around the TARDIS and taking care of Fred. Sarah did her best to run interference, understanding some of the emotional turmoil he must be going through.

It didn't help that Martha and Rose seemed to be competing to prove who was a more knowledgeable companion. They were going out of their way to show off their "mad skillz" and Sarah felt the best thing she could do was keep them occupied and out of his way. She resisted the urge to start singing "Anything you can do, I can do better", as she had a feeling it wouldn't help.

Thankfully, the trip was blessedly short, although it was long enough for Sarah to learn that Rose had indeed moved on with her life and had plenty of other adventures to brag about. The other woman was quite annoyed at finding herself back here after rebuilding her life in the parallel universe, and the Doctor and his companions were still trying to find out what had happened, though they suspected it had something to do with the rift in Cardiff.

But that was a question for another day. They landed and Sarah hoped that for once, he had steered the TARDIS properly. She was a step or two behind the others as they left the TARDIS, as she had been nursing Fred when they arrived.

Sarah jiggled the baby gently as she emerged from the TARDIS and froze. Unerringly she turned to her left and stared at the ruins. A sob escaped her at the sight. She felt the Doctor wrap an arm around her. "Sorry," she muttered, trying to get hold of her emotions. "That shouldn't be there, should it?"

"No. You were right. It's all starting to unravel." His soft voice was tight with controlled emotion.

The other two had started walking towards the ruins, still competing with each other, and oblivious to what the scene was doing to the Doctor and Sarah.

"Advanced society," Martha said crisply, indicating bits of broken machinery. "But something happened to them."

"Ecological disaster, or war perhaps," Rose replied. "Let's get closer, perhaps we'll find some answers."

They didn't look to see if the Doctor or Sarah were following them.

"I wonder who lived here," Martha mused.

"I did, once." The words slipped out of Sarah's mouth before she could stop herself. This wasn't really her fight, but the shadow on the Doctor's face echoed her own pain.

Both women turned and stared at her.

"This was my home once, for more years than I care to remember. More years than either of you have been alive." She pulled away abruptly and started walking towards the west, resisting the urge to run.

"Sarah, where are you going?" Rose asked sharply. "You shouldn't leave the group. We don't know where we are or what's out there and it's getting dark."

"I know. Leela and I planned this after Calla died. What would happen if the Capital were destroyed." This was between her and the Doctor. She wished the other two had stayed on Earth.

"Sarah," the Doctor's voice was shaky.

She swung around to face him. "There are ruins, where there should be only dust. There's an atmosphere. I'd say there's a good chance there are survivors." Her voice was wobbling, but she pressed on. "I need to know and so do you."

The Doctor caught her arm. "Slow down. We'll get there soon enough. Do you remember the way?"

"To the river? I walked it a thousand times, preparing for the worst...."

She was interrupted by other voices, and after a second the Doctor grinned. "The Chancellory Guard. Just like old times." He stared at the faces as they came closer.

Sarah watched their approach. "Is that Maxil?"

"I do believe you're right." The Doctor smiled at the approaching Guards. "It's almost like old times."

"Doctor. Still travelling with primitives I see." Despite the sarcasm, Commander Maxil looked surprisingly relieved as they reached the group at the TARDIS. He glanced at the three women. "Lady Sarah, it's good to see you both again." He ignored the other two women. "If you'll follow me."

As the followed him, Rose murmured, "Lady Sarah?"

"It's a long story." Sarah stared at the guard's back. "I'm not sure why he's started calling me that though. Humans...well, all offworlders are not particularly welcome here. Or at least they weren't." Judging by their reaction to Martha and Rose's presence, things hadn't changed that much.

Sarah caught the Doctor's hand and gave it a squeeze as the party followed the guards down the path to the river. "I suppose just wanting the people we like to survive would be wrong," she said softly.

He gave her a wry smile. "Let me take Fred for a while." He lifted the baby out of her arms and cuddled her protectively. "I don't want whoever ended up in charge to get any ideas about taking her away from us."

She nodded, remembering some of the more conservative citizens she had met when she lived here.

"Take her away from _us_?" Rose stared at the two of them. "Doctor, you're not saying...."

"She's my daughter, Rose. I thought you realised that." The Doctor gave the baby an absent smile.

Rose opened and closed her mouth a few times, before asking, "So who are these people and where are they taking us?"

The Doctor glanced at Sarah before answering, "This is Gallifrey. My home planet. Which I thought had been destroyed. During the war there were plans made for a temporary city, if the Capital was uninhabitable."

Maxil turned around. "If it hadn't been for Lady Sarah, we would never have salvaged as much as we did."

"That was mostly Calla's doing. I just picked up where she left off." Sarah was a bit bewildered. Even if her plans had helped, she never would have expected to get credit, especially from someone like Maxil.

"You laid the groundwork. If it hadn't been for your planning, long after Calla died, when the situation had changed drastically, and Leela's survival skills, no one would have survived the first winter. The President intended to seek you out and tell you, once we got the TARDISes working again."

"The President?" The Doctor asked quietly, as though he feared the answer.

By this time they had reached a small town of rough buildings and tents. Maxil led them to a slightly bigger building. "President Romana. She will be very happy to know you survived."

They followed him into an antechamber.

"Wait here," he said, "I will let her know you've arrived."


	25. Welcome Back

The four of them sat in the small antechamber in a rather awkward silence. The Doctor was still holding Fred and all of his attention was focused on the baby, perhaps so he wouldn't have to deal with Rose and Martha's reaction to the news that he was her father.

Fred started to fret, and the Doctor automatically handed her back to Sarah so that she could nurse, giving Sarah's hand a quick squeeze in the process. After a moment he crossed the room to sit beside the other two, and started speaking quietly enough that Sarah couldn't hear more than a word or two of what he was saying.

She focused instead on feeding her daughter. "I'm not going to let them take you away from me," she said softly. "And your Dad will fight to keep you too, so don't worry, Fred, Mum and Dad will keep you safe."

She was burping Fred, when there was a flurry at the door and a young woman burst in. "They told me grandfather was back." She stared at Sarah for a moment, "Grandmother? Sarah?"

Sarah grinned. She had forgotten Susan's insistence on the title, even when she had looked too young to claim it. She stood and shifted the baby to lie against her shoulder so she could embrace Susan with her other arm. "You've regenerated. You look good."

Susan smiled back. "And you look fantastic. Who's this? Your granddaughter?" She sounded hopeful.

"Our daughter. Susan, oh my Susan." The Doctor picked her up and embraced her. "You're ginger." There was a note somewhere between pride and jealousy in his voice. After a moment he held her at arms length and just stared at her. "It is so good to see you. Oh, these are my current companions, Rose and Martha."

"Pleased to meet you. And as for the red, I've regenerated...just like you. I like it, though. Very handsome." Susan grinned at him. "So this is my aunt. May I?" She didn't wait for an answer, but picked up Fred to cuddle her. "What's her name? Something outrageous, I bet."

Sarah grinned at that. "Fred. Winifred Susan Smith. Not as outrageous as human names sometimes are."

"I didn't think anyone else had survived," the Doctor added softly. "My dear, dear Susan. We had thought you were lost." She had been fighting on another planet, and they had thought her dead. "David?" He caught his breath.

"He's fine. He's working in the fields today. I was helping in the infirmary when someone said you had arrived."

Her death...presumed death...had been part of what had made him amenable to the High Council's plan, she remembered from their conversations at the time. Finding her here, alive was perhaps even better than knowing that Leela or Romana had survived.

"My team and I managed to reach an abandoned spaceship, but repairing the damage that it suffered took some time. We only managed to limp back here about a year ago. Since then we've been helping with the reconstruction of the Capitol." Susan smiled at Sarah. "You did a wonderful job of stocking this place after I was sent to Rxanda." She handed Fred back to her mother.

"I couldn't have done it without your experiences after the Dalek occupation of Earth. Your knowledge of rationing and necessary supplies made a big difference." Sarah shrugged. She noticed that Rose and Martha were standing awkwardly, but bringing them into the conversation would require more explanation, than she felt like giving at the moment. There would be plenty of time to fill them in later.

The point was rendered moot when Andred walked into the room.

The Doctor jumped up and hugged him, which surprised Andred more than it did Sarah. "Andred, it's good to see you again." He paused, clearly unsure whether he should ask.

"Leela's resting at home. We're due for a baby in a few months." Andred sounded incredibly proud of this fact. "Susan, I see somebody notified you. Good. Sarah? Is that you?" He gestured at the baby. "And who might this be?"

"My daughter." Sarah grinned at him. "Fred, Andred, Andred, Fred. Would you like to hold her?" She didn't wait for an answer but dumped the baby in his arms. "She's a week old. Isn't she the most obnoxiously cute thing you have ever seen?"

Susan looked amused at Andred's discomfort, but didn't say anything.

The Doctor gave Sarah a dark look and helped Andred adjust his grasp so that the baby was comfortable. "Our Fred is not obnoxious in any way."

Sarah resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about whether or not he'd recognise when someone was being obnoxious. Instead she smiled at Andred. "How is Leela doing? I'd love to see her again."

"She would be glad of the visit. I think she's feeling a bit hemmed in at the moment." He looked somewhat relieved at the sight of Fred, and Sarah couldn't blame him.

The work Calla had done had all been theoretical up until now, and if Leela was having similar problems to the ones Sarah had.... "I felt the same way when I was pregnant. Though that was complicated by other things going on in my life."

The Doctor arched an eyebrow. "You spent your pregnancy dealing with mad cultists and Daleks. How could you possibly have felt hemmed in?"

Sarah grimaced at him. "Trust me, it's possible."

Andred handed her back the baby. "She is very sweet. Romana is waiting for you in the next room, so I shouldn't keep you." He opened the door for them. Rose and Martha stood up to follow, and he added. "Your friends will be shown to their rooms."

The Doctor looked somewhat embarrassed. "These are Rose and Martha." Turning to them, he added, "It's okay. Andred's a friend. As is Romana. We'll see you at dinner."

Susan smiled at them. "Why don't I walk back with you and explain what's going on? And in exchange you can tell me what sort of trouble my Grandfather has been getting himself into." She grinned and led the other two out of the room.

Apparently Gallifreyan society hadn't embraced all offworlders, just her. The exception that proves the rule. As she watched the other two being herded off, her lips twitched slightly, but she didn't say anything. She had learned during her time on Gallifrey to work with the system, rather than against it, and she was looking forward to a private conversation with Romana. If the other two had been there, too much time would have been spent on explanations. At least if Susan brought them up to speed, things would go more smoothly later on.


	26. The More Things Change

When Sarah walked into the other room, she was almost relieved to see the familiar blonde woman sitting at the desk. The site had once been a holiday camp for the rare Gallifreyan who wanted a pastoral experience and the room still bore traces of it's former use. Sarah had chosen the site for that reason. It had an independent generator and despite the rough appearance of the buildings, supplied many of the comforts of the city, there being even fewer residents who liked _roughing it_ in practice.

While she was lost in thought, the Doctor blew past her, picked up Romana and spun her around. Their joy at seeing each other was obvious on their faces and for a moment Sarah felt once again like the outsider she had been when she lived on Gallifrey.

It didn't last long, though. Before Sarah knew it Romana was hugging her and admiring the baby.

"Calla would be so pleased," Romana said, as she took Fred from Sarah without bothering to ask and proceeded to make silly faces at the baby. "I think she was more invested in the cross-breeding project than she was in the more practical aspects of planning for life after the war."

Sarah started to protest, but Romana stopped her.

"Like most Time Lords, her passions, Calla's interests were not necessarily practical. She never had to worry where her next meal was coming from...I know you didn't either, but you at least understand the concept of scarcity, which isn't something Gallifrey has had to deal with in millennia. Your caches of food, tools and information are the reason we're doing as well as we are."

The Doctor grinned at Sarah, "I told you that you underestimated your contributions." Turning to Romana he retrieved Fred and asked, "What happened? I thought the plan was supposed to wipe Skaro and Gallifrey and their populations out of existence, and when I survived, I thought it was a fluke. But then I found one Dalek, and soon there were more. Sarah had the theory that my survival was causing the rest of it to unravel."

Romana smiled at Sarah, "That's our theory as well. What we've recovered of the Matrix has noticed a rewriting of history but we were still trying to track down the cause, though we were starting to suspect it might be your survival. Our TARDISes are still grounded or I would have sent someone to fetch you."

"But the survivors seem to be doing well," the Doctor said.

"We are, for the most part. You missed the worst of it. The first winter was rough, but given the devastation, the remaining population has grown a little more _interested_ in the basics of survival." Romana sighed. "It will get back to normal eventually but for now this sort of life is a novelty."

The Doctor laughed. "Stuffy old Time Lords making a fad of roughing it. This I have to see."

"You will. There's a dinner with the High Council tonight. You and your companions will all attend." Romana grinned back mischievously. "Including the ones Maxil didn't recognise."

"Rose and Martha," Sarah said promptly. This would be fun. They were about to be dropped into Time Lord society head first. Though, from what Sarah knew of both women, they were more than capable of holding their own.

Romana nodded. "We are glad to see you, Doctor. We'd caught traces of your presence, but we weren't certain if you had survived or if it was just an echo. Between the hopefully temporary loss of the Matrix's full capabilities and the psionic debris from the War we were having trouble tracking you down."

The Doctor sat down in Romana's chair, spun around a few times and then put his feet up, as if he were admiring his trainers. "I couldn't sense anyone else. I thought everyone had died...been erased from history." He kissed the top of Fred's head.

"Comfy?" Romana gave him a dark look, but didn't bother arguing. "That was the plan. We're still not sure what happened. Just that history has been changing slowly and the number of survivors keeps growing larger."

"Yes, thank you. Although..." The Doctor stood up with a flourish. "Sarah, you're the one who should be sitting down."

Sarah eyed him. "I'm fine, stop hovering. You'd think I was the first woman to ever give birth. Honestly, Doctor, I've been resting for the past fortnight. I need to stretch my legs a bit." She turned to Romana. "That sounds like what the Doctor was saying about the Daleks, but then if your plan worked it would have tied the fates of both races together. Both consigned to the stuff of legends, erased from history."

"Precisely," Romana said crisply. "If one survived, the other would too. And the Doctor was the keystone. He wasn't supposed to survive either."

"But I did. One Time Lord. Then one Dalek. But the two of us surviving left the door open for more. I should have come back to Gallifrey. As long as I didn't there was always the _potential_ that someone else had lived. I just wasn't willing to close that door. But as long as there was a chance that Gallifrey still existed then Skaro might not have been destroyed either." The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it a disordered mess. "If I had come back here right after, and seen what had become of Gallifrey, it would have removed all other possibilities. But I didn't. I couldn't. As long as I didn't return, I could believe that you and this planet were still here, where I had left you."

Sarah moved around the desk and put an arm around him. "You did the best you could. Second guessing yourself doesn't help anyone."

He grinned at her and offered her their suddenly wide-awake child. "Freddles want to go to mummy," he said in fake baby-lisp.

She sighed and took her daughter. "Hello, Fred. Have a nice nap?"

Fred, being a baby, didn't say anything, just blew bubbles at her, causing her to grin. "So what do you think of your namesake, Romana?"

Romana laughed. "She's very cute but, given her parents, I suspect she's going to be a handful when she gets older."

"Oh, probably," Sarah replied with a shrug. "But I've had practice with the Doctor all these years, I think I can handle an actual five year old."

"Oi! Standing right here." The Doctor stole Fred back. "Just for that you can't have her any more."

"You'll change your mind when she gets hungry," Sarah said with a smile. "Though he does change nappies, I'll grant him that."

"He always did like messes," Romana said conspiratorially. "I remember this time back on Regis Xon..."

"I knew there was a reason I took Sarah back to Earth. The two of you always got along way too well for my comfort." The Doctor gave them both a dark look. "I had hopes that Sarah wouldn't get along with Rose, but no...I turn my back for a minute and the next thing I know they're laughing and pointing at me. I can't win."

"No, you can't," Romana agreed. "I have to wonder why you even try."

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her and changed the subject. "Andred said that Leela was pregnant." He beamed at this information, as though he were responsible.

"She waited until she had trained others to hunt and fish and find edible plants. There are a few other communities of survivors and she and some of the Outsiders have been travelling around instructing Time Lords in basic survival skills. It wasn't until after she had returned, that she was willing to consider being tied down with a child. Sarah was right about the possibility that we might have to depend on the natural resources of our own planet for a while. Without Leela's skills, we would be on subsistence rations by now. As it is, gardening has become a bit of a fad. As has womb birth."

Sarah smiled slightly. "Calla said it would, if other options were taken away. I'm glad she was right." She hesitated before asking, "How many survived?"

"About 1500 survived the end of the war on Gallifrey. Over the last five years, that's grown to 2000, between Time Lords slowly finding their way home from other planets and new births. It will be a long time before we reach our former population, but we have started slowly rebuilding the Capitol." Romana flipped through some papers on the desk. "It's been five years since the war ended and things could have gone much worse."

"That's a relief. Did you say that the Matrix had survived?" The Doctor was clearly bubbling over with curiosity.

"A good portion of the information contained in it did. We have a partial backup, but we haven't been able to access the original to see what else might have survived. The power in the Capitol is still out...at the moment clearing the streets of debris is more of a priority. Once that's done, we'll be able to see what we can salvage of the old infrastructure and what will have to be rebuilt. We're not pushing. We have food and shelter, and by autumn we should have a few more buildings out here, to alleviate crowding and for more storage. We haven't had to deal with radiation; the population is small enough that there's been enough food to go around, and those who survived seem to take the rough living as a game."

"Time Lords roughing it. This I have to see," Sarah said with a smirk. "We should meet with Leela's doctor and pass on the information we have about my pregnancy. And I imagine you'll want to spend some time with your granddaughter." She looked up at the Doctor for confirmation.

Fred started to fret before he could answer, and he passed her to Sarah, who resisted the urge to say "I told you so."

Sarah sat down on the edge of the desk to nurse and waited for the Doctor to reply.

"Yes, of course, Susan. And like Sarah, I'd like to see what you've been up to, and how well Sarah's planning actually worked. Though I gather from Maxil's response, she's considered a hero around here." The Doctor grinned, revelling in Sarah's embarrassment.

"I'm sure we can find time for all of that, but for now, Andred will lead you to your chambers so you can dress for dinner. Prydonian robes, please, Doctor. We're not quite as formal as we were, but this is a special occasion." Romana was smiling, but the words were clearly a dismissal.

"Think of what Rose and Martha will say," Sarah added with a grin. "Their eyes will pop out of their heads."

The Doctor snorted, then sighed, "Only for you, my dear. Is our little bundle of whatever done with her meal?"

"I don't think she was very hungry." Sarah handed her back to the Doctor. "You can carry her."

"As you wish." He led the way out of the room and Sarah followed, hoping that the rest of this trip would go as smoothly as their meeting with Romana.


	27. Welcome to My Life

The dinner was uneventful, and Sarah couldn't decide if she was relieved or disappointed. At least neither Rose nor Martha had committed a major faux pas, but if there had been some disturbance, it would have kept her awake. She still hadn't recovered completely from Fred's birth and after the excitement of the day, exhaustion hit her abruptly. She excused herself and, leaving her daughter in the Doctor's care, went off to bed. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

Sarah woke to the sound of voices in the room. Not really feeling up to dealing with company, she decided to pretend she was asleep and hope they left.

"...why Sarah is resting in your bedroom, but given that she just gave birth to your daughter, it seems sort of silly." Rose, sounding surprisingly good humoured about the situation.

"Rose, I've known her for five hundred years and I haven't figured out our relationship. I certainly don't expect you to," the Doctor replied softly. "She's asleep. I'd rather not wake her."

"Five hundred...since you met her, you mean?" Rose asked

He had said something like that to Sarah right after Fred was born.

"Technically, I suppose I met her for the first time even earlier than that. It's a long story. And it's hard to criticise her for waiting for me when I'd developed the bad habit of wandering into her life, messing it up and wandering out again. If you want to talk about not letting go, I've been just as bad, if not worse than she has." He sounded old and tired. "I should have let go properly all those years ago, instead I keep blundering in, making things worse."

"We travelled together for what? Two years? Three? You can't have spent that much more time with her," Rose said lightly. "And it must have been centuries since you'd seen her."

More than that, Sarah thought. Didn't he say the war had lasted over a century?

"Hush, Fred, I'll wake Mummy to feed you in a moment. A year and a half. Since I'd seen her, I mean. As for travelling with her, ten years the first time, over a hundred the second. She was with me during the war."

"She doesn't look it." Rose paused. "A year and a half. I'd only been travelling with you a little over a year then."

"I ran into her in Brighton, in a situation almost identical to the one in Deffrey Vale. Except I didn't have a companion, and when I asked her to come with me that time, she said yes. Half an hour after we'd left, I was summoned back home because of the war."

Rose made a soft sound at that.

The Doctor continued, "They didn't know she was on board, and didn't give me time to drop her off, so she came with me. For a variety of reasons, returning her to Earth afterwards wasn't an option, so she stayed." He started to say something else but stopped. "Until the day I was asked to end the war by drastic measures. Returning her to Earth, to her own life was my one condition. The last time Sarah saw me she thought I'd be lost with the others. She lived eighteen years with that. I thought she wouldn't remember, and she pretended not to, to spare me."

"And there I was acting petty and jealous and just not getting it."

Apparently Rose had grown up a bit since then. Sarah was relieved. It had bothered her to realise on the walk over that Rose hadn't realised that Fred was the Doctor's daughter, though she had been otherwise occupied and the Doctor didn't always explain things coherently, even if he thought he had.

"There was no reason why you should. But there were reasons I hadn't mentioned her name. I just wanted to get myself together a bit more before I went back to see her, and to let her know I'd survived. Unfortunately I left it too late."

The baby let out a sudden cry, and Sarah felt the bed move as the Doctor sat down and touched her on the shoulder. She pretended to wake, and gazed at him sleepily.

"Somebody's hungry and wants her mum," he told her cheerfully.

Sarah sat up gingerly, and took the baby. "I still feel like I'm going to drop her sometimes."

"If you do, she'll either land in your lap or on the bed. I think she'll survive, either way," the Doctor said.

She couldn't help smiling at that. "Um, Rose, hi. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, the Doctor and I were just talking. Have you grown younger? Having a baby seems to have agreed with you." Rose smiled and sat down on the bed to admire Fred.

"That would be the huge doses of Gallifreyan hormones in my system. I imagine once the baby's weaned, the effect will wear off." Sarah was startled to realise that she was beginning to feel comfortable nursing.

The Doctor gave her an odd look but said nothing.

"Such an adorable baby. I've a little sister now. Four years old and cute as they come." Rose sounded happy.

"The Doctor said you were working for Torchwood in the alternate universe. Having fun?"

"Yeah." Rose gave the Doctor a look.

"Okay, if you want to talk about me behind my back, I'll leave. I know when I'm not wanted." He kissed the top of Sarah's head and left the room. "I'm sure somebody else will play with me."

Once he was gone, Sarah and Rose looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"He doesn't change. Not really. Not the important things." Sarah smiled down at her daughter.

"You don't consider his appearance important?" Rose couldn't help asking. "Bit of a shock for me, him changing like that."

"The first time was strange, but after a while.... When I met him, he was on his third. This is his tenth. You can get used to anything. Though it's weird to think that Fred might regenerate some day."

Rose giggled, "She might. But I bet you'll always know who she is. Why on Earth did you let him choose to call her Fred?"

Sarah hesitated. "Mostly his companions have been human or other aliens, but he had one companion from his own race, Romana. The first time they met she gave him her full name, Romanadvoratralundar, and he told her that he'd call her Fred instead. He didn't actually, but it was a joke between them."

"And now she's the President of Gallifrey. I hadn't realised he was so well respected."

"He isn't. He's considered a renegade and a scoundrel. He just knows the right people and has saved his homeworld often enough to have made a name for himself. He was tagged for...I'd suppose you'd call it special ops, during the war. Missions where no one else had a chance of succeeding. At the beginning, I always went with him, then I found other things I was good at, and I was asked to serve on a committee concerned with the future of Gallifrey after the war. I also wrote articles for the planet's news services. Op-ed pieces, that sort of thing. 'An alien's view of Gallifrey'." Sarah smiled at Rose. Now was not the time to dwell on what had been lost.

Rose wasn't fooled. She reached over and touched Sarah's arm. "You got to know people here. And not all of them survived. It has to be rough, coming back. Part of the reason I wanted to talk to the Doctor was to apologise for my callousness earlier. I wasn't thinking."

"I understand, Rose," Sarah said gently. "It's partially his fault for not explaining where we were headed. Still, it's better than we expected."

"I could tell at dinner. I might not have known the people or places you were discussing, but I could tell how much it affected you. It's funny. Even knowing how old he was when I was travelling with him, I never thought about the life he'd had before me that much. Maybe that was why I was so shocked when I met you." Rose smiled to show that she had got over it.

Sarah nodded. "As for Romana, we were close, during the war. His people were very isolationist, and didn't think much of other species, but she was better than most. We developed a little circle of friends, some of whom were in very high positions, some of whom weren't. Quite a bit of the planning for the war took place in our sitting room." Sarah went on to talk about some of the nicer things about life on Gallifrey.

The conversation stayed light. Rose told Sarah about the life she'd built for herself.

"I grieved for a while, and kept waiting for him to come back, but then one day it hit me that I didn't need to wait for him to come rescue me from the shop, that what he'd really done was taught me how to live. So I focused on using what he'd taught me about how to change things to change myself."

Sarah agreed. "I'd forgotten that when I saw him again. For the past few years, my life has been one crisis after another and I was tired of running, tired of fighting and tired of being the one who had to be in control. And then he walked through the door and it was a little too tempting to drop it all on his shoulders. I felt like an idiot after." It hadn't got any better since then.

Rose gave her an understanding smile, "From what he said, before you woke up, you had plenty of reasons for the way you reacted. I can't imagine what living through the war must have been like."

"It's not something I'd want to repeat. Are you done, Fred? Now how about a nice burp?" She lifted the baby to her shoulder, deliberately changing the subject.

"It's getting late, or at least it feels that way. I should probably go and leave you two to rest." Rose yawned. "Sarah, I'm not the spoiled brat I was when we last met. I've moved on, found a boyfriend, made a new life for myself."

"And the Doctor and I need to sort out what happens next. He's not the easiest person in the world to talk to about such things." She laid a very sleepy Fred in the bassinet beside the bed and started rocking it gently with one hand.

"I've noticed." Rose grinned at her.

There was a rap on the door, and the Doctor peeked in. "Rose, I didn't realise you were still here."

"If that's a hint, I was already leaving." She gave him a cheeky smile. "You have a very cute daughter by the way."

"I think we'll keep her." He watched as she walked past him and out into the hall, then closed the door. "And how's Fred's mum doing?"

"Better. Still tired though. Are you're lonely because there's no one to play with?" she teased. "I would have thought that there would be plenty of Time Lords here who keep your hours."

"That can wait. Which is nice to be able to say."

Sarah grinned at that. She understood completely.

"Actually, I was thinking I'd lie beside you and read and keep an eye on Fred, so you can get some proper rest. Do you want me to read to you?" He settled down beside her, fully dressed.

It had been one of their customs. "Yes, I think I'd like that."

"Okay, snuggle down and I'll read you this book about hyperstellar craft of the 31st century."

"Sounds delightfully boring."

"I'm sure it will put you to sleep in no time." He reached over and tucked her in. "Hypersteller aircraft have their roots...."

It didn't really matter what he was reading, Sarah thought as she closed her eyes, just hearing the sound of his voice as she drifted off to sleep was enough.


	28. Taking Stock

Sarah hesitated outside the door to Andred and Leela's flat. Memories of their relationship during the war flooded back to her. She and Leela had not always got along, though they had teamed up on several missions for the CIA and the High Council. Sarah suspected that Leela didn't know what to make of her. Unlike Leela, she had adapted to the political intrigues and complex social graces of the Time Lords and Leela had more than once grouped her as one of "them" rather than one of us.

It hadn't helped that Sarah and Romana had quickly become friends. Sarah herself had felt caught in the middle between Leela's frustration at the Time Lords' elaborate rituals and the Gallifreyan intolerance of offworlders. Eventually she had found a balance, but it had taken time and delicate negotiations.

The Doctor, of course, had no such reservations. While she was lost in thought, he knocked on the door. Martha leaned against the wall, watching him, her arms folded.

Rose had made her excuses and gone off somewhere with Susan. Sarah wasn't sure what they were up to but suspected it involved a surprise for the Doctor, though it might have been a disinterest in what was likely to be a rather heavily technical scientific discussion. Rose's strengths, like Jo's seemed to lie elsewhere. Sarah had been grateful for the conversation the night before, and happy to see that Rose seemed to have moved on with her life better than Sarah ever had.

She found herself wondering what Martha would think of Leela and vice versa. Odds were that Leela would have less in common with the woman who was training to be a Doctor than she did with Sarah.

Andred answered, in robes rather than his usual Guard uniform, and ushered the three of them in. "Nerissa is with Leela now. They're both looking forward to seeing Fred."

"Who wouldn't be?" The Doctor said with a grin. "She's the most adorable baby ever. Or at least that I've seen recently."

Sarah snickered. "I'm sure your baby will be just as nice. And less of a handful when it gets older."

"Oi!" The Doctor gave her a dark look.

She smiled sweetly. "You're not the only troublemaker in this family, you know. I was referring just as much to myself." She bounced the baby a little. "Oh, you're going to be getting into the worst scrapes when you're older, aren't you, Fred?"

Sarah could feel Martha's eyes on her. She supposed their casual approach to childrearing would be somewhat strange to the driven young woman. She knew the Time Lords wouldn't know what to make of it.

They followed Andred into the lounge where Leela and Nerissa were sitting. Leela jumped up from the chair and embraced the Doctor despite being heavily pregnant.

For once she wasn't wearing her customary skins. When Sarah had lived on Gallifrey, she had adopted the local dress, but Leela had persisted in wearing her old outfits. Sarah suspected that it was only her pregnancy that had forced her into robes.

Leela arched an eyebrow at Sarah, before hugging her tightly and saying, "Andred said you had a baby. May I?"

Sarah handed her Fred, and watched as she admired the baby, knowing what would come after.

She wasn't surprised when Leela turned to her and said, "You have aged. Did it take you so long to conceive her?"

The Doctor answered before Sarah had a chance to. "We were separated for a time. When we were together again, she got pregnant almost immediately." He absently wandered around the room fiddling with things. "Sarah's had a rough pregnancy, but we thought knowing about our experiences might make it easier on you."

Nerissa stood. "That's a very good thought. It's not as though we've tried something like that before. We've found some of Calla's notes, but all she had to go on was theory. Any practical information would be very helpful."

Martha smiled. "That's where I come in. I'm studying to be a doctor and I've gone over the information with the Doctor. Is there a computer we can use?" She withdrew one of the marble shaped storage devices from a pocket, and followed Nerissa over to the computer, chatting about human gestation.

Leela returned the baby and sat down again and Sarah took that as a cue to settle down in the chair that Nerissa had vacated. Once she was comfortable, she started to feed Fred.

The Doctor ambled over and straddled the arm of the chair, throwing one arm around her shoulders and kissing the top of her head. "How are you doing, Leela?"

"Well enough, Doctor. The normal trials of pregnancy, but it is better than your sterile artificial wombs."

Sarah smiled. "I hear traditional births have become a trend here. And gardening."

"They are starting to value a simpler way of life. It is a pity that it took such a tragedy for them to learn this." Leela absently stroked her belly. "I would not have liked to raise a child in their society though."

Andred sat down beside her, gently placing his hand on top of hers. "You would have, though, if the damage had not been so great. We've both wanted this baby for a long time."

"I know," the Doctor said, suddenly sliding into the chair that Sarah was already occupying. "We have too."

Sarah glared at him. "It's a good thing you're skinny in this incarnation, Doctor." But she allowed him to wrap an arm around her and snuggled against him. "It was a bit of a shock when I found out. I thought I was past this point, by human standards."

Leela looked horrified. "I am glad you were not. She is a very strong and healthy child. I hope ours fares as well."

"I'm sure it will be." Sarah said. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?" She couldn't help asking.

"Andred knows. I do not care to. As long as it is healthy, I will be happy," Leela said thoughtfully. "I worried before you showed up."

The Doctor said, "So did we. Especially since all Sarah had was her own people's medical knowledge. It's rather primitive, compared to Gallifrey," he explained to Andred. "But I didn't think I had other options to offer her. "

Andred nodded. "I am relieved that we waited. There were plenty of medical supplies, but the physicians were busy with the wounded. And Leela felt it was her duty to help us adjust to this rougher style of living. Without her instruction, we'd be in much worse shape right now."

Martha suddenly motioned Sarah over to the desk where she and Nerissa were working, so she handed Fred to the Doctor and excused herself. Sarah wasn't surprised to find that Nerissa had some questions about the pregnancy that Martha didn't have the answers to. She and the Doctor had briefed Martha as much as they could, but they had known they couldn't cover everything. She answered Nerissa's inquiries about her work with Calla while watching the Doctor chat with Leela and Andred.

Like the Doctor, Calla had been in the habit of chattering about whatever she was working on, whether or not Sarah had understood it. By the time of Calla's death, Sarah had picked up an amazing amount of both theoretical and practical knowledge of genetics, and she was surprised at how much she could pass on to Nerissa.

After she had answered the physician's questions, they returned to the other group and the talk turned to a more general discussion of what had happened after the Doctor had left on his mission. Leela told some amusing stories of the Time Lords' first attempts to feed themselves off the land instead of from machines.

Sarah was once again surprised at how quickly the Time Lords had accepted the need to take care of themselves after the war. From what Leela said, they had dug in and accepted the burdens and difficulties of trying to rebuild their society. And it seemed to be proceeding in an orderly fashion, following the guidelines and plans she had laid out before she left, prioritising basic needs over momentary comforts.

But there was still quite a bit to be done. Sarah almost felt guilty that if she had any choice in the matter, she would be leaving soon. Having started to build a life back on Earth, she felt she couldn't abandon it now. She would come back, though. Perhaps, one day she would even stay, when her obvious lack of ageing made it impossible to stay where she was. But for now, Earth was her home and she would do whatever she had to to get back.


	29. The Morning After

They spent the rest of the day exploring the small city which had grown up around the river. Sarah was still a bit shocked at how well the Time Lords adapted to the manual labours necessary in the current situation.

After lunch Romana told them about the progress the Time Lords had made in the Capitol, clearing away debris. There hadn't been that many dead in the city. Most had just disappeared at the moment that the Doctor altered history, wiped from the past as well as the present.

They had been monitoring the part of the Matrix they had access to, and time seemed to have settled into a fixed path since the Doctor had returned to Gallifrey, confirming Sarah's theory that the problem was tied to his perspective.

When Sarah, Martha and Rose went to bed that night they left the Doctor chatting cheerfully with Susan and Romana about the future of Gallifrey.

"Sarah, you're being awfully quiet," Rose said.

The other two had been happily discussing everything they had seen that day and Sarah had fallen silent.

"I don't know...it just feels too good to be true. I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Martha grinned at her. "Perhaps it won't, this time. And if it does, we'll handle it."

"Perhaps you're right." But Sarah couldn't shake the feeling of unease.

They had reached Sarah's room and Sarah said a cheerful good night to them, recovered her daughter from Rose, who had been cuddling the baby, and went in to get ready for bed.

Sarah woke to the sound of a TARDIS, knowing something was terribly wrong. Hadn't Romana said that the TARDISes were grounded? The light...she opened her eyes to see golden sunlight streaming through the window. Blue sky and green leaves. And that was definitely a TARDIS she heard.

"Sarah? Did you have a bad dream?" The Doctor wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.

"No, not bad." Her wits were coming back to her. A dream, that was all it was. She should have realised. The whole thing had been too good to be true. "Just..." She looked up at him hesitantly before saying softly, "I dreamt we went back to Gallifrey, and there were...people had survived and were rebuilding." Leela...she had held Leela in her arms when she died. "I'm sorry." His grief must be so much greater.

He stroked her hair. "You lived there too. _You_ would understand, of all my companions. There may have been a few survivors, like the Daleks, but not the entire planet. Gallifrey's gone, Sarah. We both need to accept that."

She stared at him as a sudden thought came to her. "Speaking of survivors, if you've been here the whole time, whose TARDIS is that?"

"I don't know. Do you feel up to investigating?" He didn't give her a chance to answer but grabbed her hands and pulled. "Come on, Sarah. Aren't you curious?"

"I'm in my nightie," she mock-protested, but she let him drag her out of bed, and she only stopped to pick up Fred, on the theory that the baby would be safer with them than away from them.

Holding her daughter, Sarah followed the Doctor down the stairs. When they reached the first floor, the doorbell rang. She watched the Doctor take the last staircase in a few long strides, and was half surprised he didn't slide down the bannister instead.

"Hello, I'm looking for Sarah Jane Smith. She does still live here, doesn't she?"

The woman's voice was hopeful, but not one she recognised and the Doctor was blocking her view. Someone she had known during the war? She slowly walked down until she was standing on the last step.

"She does," the Doctor's voice was slightly cautious. "May I say who's asking?"

"Oh, are you her son? I'm her g-..I'm Susan Foreman. Is she here?"

"Is she home, Susan? We did get the right house, I hope."

That voice Sarah recognised, to her eternal shock.

Sarah couldn't see the Doctor's face, but she suspected he was gaping the way he had the first time he saw her again. Next would come the babbling.

Romana didn't give him a chance, but pushed past him. "Sarah."

"Romana," She shifted Fred awkwardly to one arm as the other woman embraced her. She looked somewhat dishevelled, and Sarah could see bruises and barely healed cuts.

The moment the other woman let go, Susan pounced. "Grandmother. You look good."

Sarah could feel Susan shaking as they hugged and something made her suspect that Susan hadn't had this body very long.

"It's been difficult trying to get here," Romana said softly. "Nightmare doesn't begin to cover it. But...can we stay for a little while?"

"Of course, as long as you like." Sarah reached up to touch Susan's battered face. After her dream, it was so hard to believe this was real.

"Thank you, grandmother." Susan smiled sadly. "I'm so sorry about grandfather. He should...." Her voice broke and she buried her face in Sarah's shoulder.

That finally shook the Doctor out of his shock. "Oi, Susan, standing right here," he said with mock fury.

Susan froze in Sarah's grasp, then turned around and threw herself at the Doctor. "Grandfather? Is it really you?"

"Of course, my dear. Like a cat, me, always landing on my feet." He hugged her tightly. "My Susan. You've regenerated."

"So have you. You look...young."

"I feel old. So very old." He shook his head as if to clear it. He looked over at Romana. "How did you...?"

Susan answered, "Romana was knocked unconscious and I dragged her into the Presidential TARDIS to get her out of harms' way. A futile gesture."

"Not as it turned out," Romana said softly.

"I was hurt badly in the process and started to regenerate as I set the course," Susan continued. "Between that and the damage to the TARDIS we were thrown into the void. When we came back through we were on Earth and there were Cybermen on the ground and Daleks in the sky. When I saw them being pulled away, I suspected that something was pulling them back into the void, so I set a quick course for six months in the future and dematerialised before we were too. I didn't trust the dimensional stabilizers to be working properly."

"Go on," the Doctor said, stroking her hair.

"We landed, and Romana regained consciousness shortly thereafter. We discussed the possibilities and decided that tracking down Sarah would be our best course of action. I thought you had died, grandfather. But there were Daleks." Her voice broke again.

"And I thought you had. Both of you." The Doctor reached over and pulled Romana into his embrace. "There have been a few Dalek survivors, and I had just begun to believe that some Time Lords might have survived as well."

Sarah slipped into the kitchen, trying to ignore her feelings of unease. If other Time Lords had survived what did he need her for any more? Her dream had been overly optimistic, a reflection of everything she had wished for. A Gallifrey with a future...the future she had planned for the planet before they had lost the war. Instead she had dust and ashes and three war-scarred Time Lords to deal with.

She smiled down at Fred. She'd done the self-pity thing; it was time to move on and trust that the Doctor would be there if she needed him.


	30. Two Less Lonely People in the World

Sarah laid Fred in her carrier, which she kept in the kitchen, and set about making a pot of tea, allowing the familiar ritual to soothe her. And she waited, knowing that eventually the Doctor would come looking for her, or at least for some tea.

It didn't take long at all. The tea was steeping and there was a plate of sandwiches on the table when the three Time Lords entered the kitchen.

"Who are you and what have you done with Sarah?" the Doctor asked bemusedly, idly sticking a finger in the honey pot and licking it off. "Are you feeling alright? Since when do you do domestic?"

"I cooked on Gallifrey, Doctor as you pointed out not all that long ago," Sarah replied with a grin. She motioned the others to sit and poured the tea. "I imagine you'll want baths and clean clothes too. We'll see what we can find after you've eaten."

"Thank you, Sarah," said Romana sniffing at the cup of tea. "For everything."

Instead of sitting, Susan went over to admire Fred. "She is so adorable. May I?"

"Of course you may, my dear." The Doctor picked his daughter up and demonstrated how to hold her. "Here you go. Fred, this is your niece, Susan."

Sarah grabbed the camera she had placed on the counter and snapped a few pictures of the three of them. "For posterity."

The Doctor grinned. "I trust I'll get copies."

Sarah nodded. That had been the point.

Susan gingerly carried Fred over to the table and carefully sat down. "She's so small."

"Babies are," Romana said authoritatively, before spoiling the Presidential image by offering Fred a finger, which was promptly grasped.

The two of them ogled the baby for the next few minutes, causing the Doctor to preen and Sarah to wonder if they would notice their tea was growing cold.

Abruptly Fred let out a squall, and Susan froze, looking worried. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, she's just hungry," Sarah said. She retrieved her daughter, who promptly quieted when she started nursing.

A relieved Susan turned back to her tea. "Ooh. Marmite. I missed Marmite. The replicators never did a good job with it."

Romana took a jam sandwich and bit into it thoughtfully. "The Doctor has filled us in on what has happened to him since the war ended, Sarah, but not about what happened with you. You weren't supposed to have remembered anything about the war, yet you clearly do."

"We haven't come to any earth-shattering conclusions about that," Sarah replied. "Maybe it was because there were some survivors or maybe the genetic engineering that Calla did, all I know is that I never forgot any of it."

"You never did tell me what had happened to you after I left you back in Brighton, Sarah." The Doctor reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I went home and waited for the memories to fade, but they didn't. After a few weeks, I took a job as a war correspondent, because I couldn't cope with pretending nothing had happened. Maybe I was looking for an excuse for the shell shock I was feeling; maybe I just had a death wish."

The Doctor froze. "Sarah...." He sighed. "I suppose I can't blame you for that. I was courting death myself afterwards."

"I suppose that at least gave me a chance to get my head straightened out. By the time I came back I was ready to get my life back together, and if I broke down, I could use some of the things I'd seen there as an excuse." Sarah shrugged. "I packed anything that reminded me of you in cardboard boxes, closed off the memories in the back of my mind and pretended that everything was okay."

"That can't have been easy," Susan said softly.

Sarah shrugged. "I did what I had to do to survive. When I'd finally had enough of the war, I transferred back to the London office. I ran into Tegan on the flight home, if you can believe it. She was stewardessing again, but whenever she had a free minute, she'd come and talk to me. When we got to Heathrow, I called Liz and suggested the three of us get together. She brought Jo along, and it was nice to be able to talk about our travels with the Doctor, even if there was so much I couldn't say."

"I shudder to think what sort of tales you did tell." The Doctor offered the tea around, before pouring himself a second cup.

Romana snickered, "I can think of a few."

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Sarah asked brightly before continuing. "Anyway, I worked at slowly rebuilding my life. It was still difficult to adjust to _normal_ life again, but I managed. Having Liz and the others and Harry helped. And if I mourned the Doctor, I kept it to myself. There was no reason to tell the others that you were gone."

Sarah paused to shift the baby to her other breast aware of the others waiting for her to continue.

"Just when I thought that my life was working, I was fired from my job at Planet Three due to trumped up charges. The company I was investigating managed to convince my bosses that I'd falsified evidence. I didn't know it at the time, but that was my first brush with the Crimson chapter of the Orbis Postremo." She couldn't keep the weariness from her voice.

"Sarah has her very own doomsday cult," the Doctor said proudly.

"Grandfather, you're the only one I can think of who would be happy about something like that." Susan took another marmite sandwich and waved it at him. "And where were you during all of this?"

"Elsewhere." The Doctor's voice was soft. "I thought she had forgotten me and that everything else I cared about was gone, except for Earth. I was half mad for a time, and then I found myself tracking a Nestene signal. Ran into a girl named Rose who came travelling with me."

Now it was Sarah's turn to grip the Doctor's hand. Fred had finished nursing and fallen asleep, and Sarah handed her to her father to cuddle.

"Rose...well, I was a mess, like Sarah, courting death because I didn't want to live with the pain. She and Jack pulled me back from the edge, and just as I was starting to feel happy I was alive again, we ran into the Daleks. I told you the rest." He smiled sadly at his daughter.

Sarah took up the story again. "We ran into each other shortly after he regenerated. It had been eighteen years for me and I...I slipped into a room to hide and saw the TARDIS. I backed out of the room in shock and there he was, just standing there staring at me. I'd run into him earlier and had convinced myself that I was imagining things."

"She told me she'd thought I was dead, and I told her everyone else was, and I think she decided to...spare me the knowledge that she remembered everything she had been through." Fred woke up suddenly and the Doctor made a funny face at her. "Did you have a good nap, Fredlet?"

Romana laid a hand on Sarah's arm. "I can't imagine living with that knowledge for so many years."

"I managed. It wasn't easy, though. I have nightmares still. Arcadia, Calla, Leela. All our plans for the future...wasted."

"That wasn't your fault any more than it was ours," Romana said softly. "The fortunes of war mean that sometimes your plans come to naught. Leela died fighting as she would have wanted, face to face with the enemy; Calla was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I think you did as well or better as the head of that committee; and no one could have predicted Arcadia."

Sarah could tell the loss hadn't quite sunk in for either Romana or Susan. It would take some time for "it's over, we lost" to become a part of their reality as it had been hers and the Doctor's.

The Doctor caught a look from her and changed the subject. "Did you say you'd be staying with Sarah?"

"If she'll have us," Susan said hopefully. "I don't know where else we'd go. This is so different from the Earth I knew and the only other people I knew here were Barbara and Ian and they wouldn't even recognise me."

"We could try and track them down anyway. If they travelled with the Doctor, they must be used to all sorts of strange things. Do you know their last names?" Sarah asked. "Jo is trying to get as many of your father's former companions as she can for a party of some sort. I don't know why it hasn't happened yet, but she's rather a scatterbrain. Her heart's in the right place, though."

"I remember you saying something about that...at your friends wedding. How are they doing?" The Doctor bounced the baby a little bit while he waited for an answer.

"Better now that Nat seems to have got over the idea that Josh is fixated on me. Having you around so much helped." Sarah turned to the others. "Nat and Josh are my best friends. I'm sure you'll meet them soon."

Susan grinned, suddenly reminding Sarah of her grandfather. "Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton. Though Barbara might have got married. They both might have. They were teachers at Coal Hill School in the sixties."

Sarah smiled suddenly. "I think they married each other. Jo said something about him being her youngest daughter's science tutor. How's that for coincidence?"

"I should like to see Barbara and Ian again myself. We certainly must call Jo and arrange that. You should meet my first human companions, Fred. If it hadn't been for them, I might never have got involved with your mum in the first place." He sniffed the air. "Smells like someone's in need of a nappy change. I'll be right back."

After he'd gone, Romana turned to Sarah and asked, "You're sure our staying won't inconvenience you? I know you've got your hands full with the baby."

"Expect to be put to work. Especially in the middle of the night, when her father isn't around." Sarah shrugged. "It will be nice to have someone around who understands. I've spent too much time keeping too many secrets."

"I suppose I'll have to remember not to call you grandmother, though I do like it so." Susan's eyes twinkled.

"Adoptive granddaughter or surrogate or something. It's not out of the range of possibility that I might have been closely involved with your grandfather at this point in my life. However, he looks way too young to be your grandfather at the moment, so you might want to keep that in mind."

"Will do." Susan suddenly hopped out of her chair and flung herself at Sarah. "It is so good to see you again."

"You too. Both of you." Sarah gestured for Romana to join the hug. "I missed you both so much."

They talked quietly for a while, waiting for the Doctor to come back. Sarah filled them in on about the Crimson chapter and her life on Earth and they talked about how they would live and plans for the future.

The Doctor finally bounced back into the room with a burbling baby in tow.

"We were about to send out a search party." Romana said, supressing a laugh. "I didn't think changing a baby took that long."

"It didn't. Jack called. They figured out how to get Rose back to the alternate universe, but there was a limited time frame, so she's going rather than lose the opportunity."

Sarah stood up and put an arm around him. "And you're going off to say a proper goodbye?"

He smiled sadly. "At least this time I know she's getting on with her life, instead of mourning me and some fantasy she built up in her head. And if you take that personally, I swear...she wasn't at my side for decades during the war. I wouldn't have wanted her to be. You made a bad time better. She wouldn't have." The Doctor handed Fred over. "I'll be back soon, I promise." A quick kiss, and a hug for Romana and Susan and he was out the door.

Susan started clearing away the tea things. "Didn't you mention something about a shower?"

"Shower or bath, your pick. And if you don't mind my tastes in clothes, we'll find you both something to wear until we can get you some proper clothes."

"Sounds like a plan." Romana said. "From what I can remember of Earth, my torn, worn Presidential robes would not be appropriate."

Sarah led them up the stairs, remembering how she had dreaded the future when she had first found out she was pregnant. Now the future looked much less grim. And whatever happened couldn't be worse than what she'd already been through. Perhaps they hadn't been able to save Gallifrey, but at least she had some of the family she had built there, back.

Fred blew bubbles at her and she grinned at her daughter and the prospect of a life she'd never expected to have. There would be time later for tears and mourning and serious discussions about the future, for now it was just nice to have them back and to know that neither she nor the Doctor were alone any more.


End file.
